By Osman Unalan,
NEW DELHI: Indialogue Foundation presents the most amazing Turkish Fest in India: Turkish Fest 2012 New Delhi.
The Festival will be open to the general public free of charge from 04:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. on Saturday March 24, 2012 and full day on Sunday March 25, 2012 in the heart of New Delhi at Select City Walk Mall, Saket. Free live performances will take place.
The Festival will display Turkish art, folk dance, music and gourmet food, where visitors will get an opportunity to celebrate, learn, and savor Turkish hospitality, culture, heritage and cuisine.
Visitors will be able to browse and buy Turkish products, souvenirs and handicrafts, participate in activities for children, view many authentic demonstrations and performances, sample Turkish cuisine, and do much, much more at the Festival.
…And shop at Turkish Bazaar in the Turkish Fest and win a free ticket to Turkey from Turkish Airlines.*
Activities at The New Delhi, Turkish Fest 2012
Live Turkish Music Performances: A variety of Turkish music groups will be performing on stage throughout the festival. Music will feature contemporary, folk, traditional and popular songs by Indian, international and local performers.
• Turkish Folk Dances: Professional and children Folk dance groups will be show cased performing dances from different regions of Turkey. Music and costumes are the essential parts of the traditional dances. During performances music, instruments and patterns of the region are preserved. Music is performed with traditional folk instruments.
• The Oriental corner: Decorative Turkish pillows, tables, traditional jewelry, handicrafts, rugs and more.
• Turkish cuisine: Sample gourmet foods including kababs, donair, vegetarian and olive oil dishes, Gözleme (Turkish Pancake), Börek (Turkish Flaky Pastry), Mantı (Turkish Ravioli), Sarma (Stuffed Vine Leaves), drinks such as Ayran (Turkish Buttermilk), desserts like baklava, Turkish delight and much more.
• Taste popular Turkish coffee & tea.
• Kids’ activities: face painting, games and the making of cotton candy.
• Whirling Dervish of Rumi Performance: One of the wonders of Turkey will perform one of the most exquisite ceremonies of spirituality, a mesmerizing seven-century old ritual, incredible performance featuring beautiful costumes, hypnotic music with flutes, string and percussion, and the amazing sight of the Dervishes whirling on the stage. The Mevlevi order has been established on the teachings of Mevlana Jalaladdeen Rumi, Rumi for short, in late 13th century. As a poet, Rumi has enjoyed enormous popularity in North America recently. The ritual unites the three fundamental components of human nature: the mind (as knowledge and thought), the heart (through the expression of feelings, poetry and music), and the body (by activating life, by turning). These three elements are thoroughly joined both in theory and in practice and as perhaps in no other ritual or system of thought. Celebrating Rumi’s 800th birthday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) had announced the year 2007 as the year of Rumi.
• Mehterân, Ottoman Military Band: Mehterans are thought to be the oldest variety of military marching band in the world. It is believed that the first “mehter” was sent to Osman I by the Seljuk Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad III as a present along with a letter that salutes the newly formed state. From then on every day after the afternoon prayer; “mehter” played for the Ottoman ruler. The notion of a military marching band, such as those in use even today, began to be borrowed from the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. The sound associated with the mehterân also exercised an influence on European classical music, with composers such as Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven all writing compositions inspired by or designed to imitate the music of the mehters
• Ebru, Water Marbling Demonstrations: Marbling is a method of making patterned paper by transferring colour from the surface of a liquid to paper. Marbling is the art of printing multi-coloured swirled or stone-like patterns on paper or fabric. The patterns are formed by first floating the colors on the surface of a liquid, and then laying the paper or fabric onto the colors to absorb them. The Turkish art of Ebru which is known to be practiced in Istanbul for more than five hundred years and known as “Turkish paper” for centuries in the western world certainly has a tradition which is passed from generation to generation by a master and apprentice relationship.
• Calligraphic Demonstrations: Turkish Calligraphy, basically, is the writing of Latin letters applied within the aesthetics of Calligraphy. Turkish Calligraphy is the combination of letters of Latin alphabet which were adopted as of the foundation of the Turkish Republic in the 20th Century, with the art of Islamic Calligraphy (Husn-i Hat). The scribes usually display their skills at fairs and exhibitions as they produce works of Calligraphy in a few seconds without any template, in the presence of visitors with customized on-demand applications. The Admirers of this art ask the scribe to write a person’s name, the name of a company, or beautiful saying on cards, key rings, plates and tablets to use as ornaments of gifts.
• Turkish Tourism Corner: Providing touristic brochures and information on trips to Turkey
• Ney (Reed Flute) Performances: A rim-blown, oblique flute made of reed, the Ney has six finger-holes in front and a thumb-hole in back. Using cross-fingering, finger-hole shading, and embouchure adjustment, the journeyman player can produce any pitch over a two-and-a-half octave range or more. Nearly all Neys have a outhpiece made of water buffalo horn, or sometimes ivory, ebony, plastic, or similar durable material.
*Conditions Apply