A study on somatic expressions in Arabesque music as an elements of popular culture in Turkiye: Arabesque dance design

Year 2024, Volume: 5 Issue: 3, 145 - 160, 30.09.2024

Beste Naiboğlu Özgüç

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13765627

Abstract

The artistic work, developed through the processing of units derived from and compiled by society itself, undoubtedly represents more than just a pure artistic production process. Like Arabesque music, which has emerged as a popular cultural product in Turkey, preferred by the society to which it belongs and emerging from internal collective stimulation, a movement pool that is familiar to both individuals on a micro level and society on a macro level has been reached. This study aims to offer a new artistic material pool to the world of dance studies by transforming the movement patterns of kinesthetic expression, which carry the emotions and characteristics of individuals engaging in the collective behavior of listening to a common music, into a dance design. This work proposes an experimental dance design that draws support from the knowledge of dance genres, including folk dances, but cannot be defined as a folk dance or any other type of dance. In this study, using the results of data collected through surveys on Arabesque music, one of the elements of popular culture in Turkey, joint reactive movement patterns were processed, and an experimental choreography of Arabesque Dance was created. This is a modeling study in which data obtained through interviews and observations were analyzed, coded, and an Arabesque Dance Choreography Design was developed. The study involved 100 voluntary participants. The results indicated that Arabesque music was listed as the sixth most frequently listened genre. While participants generally reported that they rarely listen to Arabesque music, the mood commonly associated with it was described as melancholy and sadness. The most frequently listened artists were Müslüm Gürses, Orhan Gencebay, and Ferdi Tayfur. The frequency of participants moving or not moving while listening to Arabesque was found to be nearly equal. Movements while listening to Arabesque were described as swaying, head movements, rhythm, hand movements, and dancing. In the structuring of Arabesque dance, analysis of videos collected from willing participants identified head positions such as front, center, back, left side, right side, front left side, front right side, back left side, and back right side. In the arm positions, various spontaneous variants with the inclusion of the hands can be utilized. These variants can be supported by technical studies from ballet arm positions. Ballet technique was also used in both the upper and lower extremities in the overall dance design. The created Arabesque dance choreography design is presented in the study.

Keywords

arabesque music, Arabesque dance choreography design, Dance

Ethical Statement

This article is produced from the author's master's thesis. Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Ethics Committee for Human Research in Social and Human Sciences of Istanbul Technical University with decision number 501 dated 30.04.2024.

Thanks

I would like to thank all the participants who contributed to this study

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