TY - JOUR T1 - I’m Just Here for the Dabke TT - Ben Sadece Dabke için Buradayım AU - Mire, Leila PY - 2025 DA - September Y2 - 2025 DO - 10.62425/theatreacademy.1714832 JF - Theatre Academy JO - Theatre Academy PB - Atatürk Üniversitesi WT - DergiPark SN - 2980-1656 SP - 105 EP - 122 VL - 3 IS - 2 LA - en AB - This essay examines dabke, the Palestinian folk dance, as a site of cultural resistance and political intervention. Blending personal narrative, media, and historical analysis, it traces dabke’s evolution from rural Levantine roots to its appropriation by Israeli state institutions and its ongoing reclamation by Palestinians in the diaspora and under occupation. Through performances, workshops, and activism, the essay explores how dabke mediates joy, grief, and solidarity, challenging both colonial narratives and respectability politics in the arts. Situating dance within broader struggles for liberation, it argues that embodied practice can enact political claims where words fail, sustaining community, memory, and resilience. To “shut up and dance” becomes a deliberate act of survival, creativity, and defiance. Ultimately, dabke illustrates the transformative potential of cultural practice as both a repository of history and a vehicle for radical imagining and collective freedom. KW - Dabke KW - Palestine KW - Cultural Resistance N2 - Bu makale, Filistin halk dansı olan dabkeyi, kültürel direnişin ve politik müdahalenin bir alanı olarak inceler. Makale, kişisel anlatı, medya ve tarihsel incelemeyi harmanlayarak dabkenin kırsal Levant köklerinden, İsrail devlet kurumları tarafından sahiplenilmesine ve diasporadaki ve işgal altındaki Filistinliler tarafından yeniden sahiplenilişine kadar uzanan evrimini takip eder. Performanslar, atölyeler ve aktivizm aracılığıyla, dabkenin sevince, kedere ve dayanışmaya nasıl aracılık ettiğini hem sömürgeci anlatılara hem de sanatlardaki saygınlık siyasetine nasıl meydan okuduğunu keşfeder. Dansı özgürlük mücadelesinin daha geniş bağlamına yerleştiren makale, bedensel pratiğin kelimelerin yetersiz kaldığı yerde politik iddiaları hayata geçirebileceğini, topluluğu, hafızayı ve direnci sürdürebileceğini öne sürer. “Sus ve dans et” ifadesi, hayatta kalmanın, yaratıcılığın ve meydan okumanın kasıtlı bir hareketi hâline gelir. Sonuç olarak dabke, kültürel pratiğin hem tarihin bir deposu hem de radikal tahayyülün ve kolektif özgürlüğün bir aracı olarak dönüştürücü potansiyelini örneklendirir. CR - Al Jazeera. (2021, September 19). Spoons become a new symbol of Palestinian resistance. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/9/19/spoons-a-new-symbol-of-palestinian-freedom. CR - @al.juthoor. (n.d.). [Instagram profile]. 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