Kineo | Öykü Demirci Bacanakgil
Opening Space for Dance and the Body: An Institutional Gaze at Performing Arts and Hara
In Turkey, dance and performance art have long struggled to claim their rightful place within the structural and conceptual boundaries of art institutions. These forms are often overshadowed by more established performing arts such as theatre or music, within the realm of contemporary art, they are frequently relegated to secondary positions—as “side events” or “accompanying programs”—under the dominance of plastic arts. Yet, artistic practices that use the body as a means of expression in Turkey are neither entirely new nor entirely developed outside of institutional frameworks. From the body discipline policies of the early Republican era to the staged representations institutionalized through folk dance, and the rise of contemporary dance and performance since the 1990s, these practices reveal how dance and performance have been shaped within a sociopolitical context. Despite these developments, permanent spaces, sustainable support programs, curatorial expertise, and archiving initiatives dedicated to body-based practices within institutional structures in Turkey remain limited. The scarcity of research that addresses performance art within an institutional framework further undermines the visibility of this field on an academic level. The historical, political, and cultural potential embedded in dance as a form of expression often goes underexplored due to the lack of both physical space and conceptual grounding. Yet the body is not merely an aesthetic element of spectacle, it is a mode of being that intersects directly with contemporary art—as a carrier of memory, identity, and social relations. Precisely for this reason, there is a growing need for institutions that approach dance not merely as something to be watched, but through the complex web of relationships it establishes with space, audience, and the conditions of artistic production. In recent years, some independent art spaces have begun to recognize this gap and have started to carve out a dedicated place for dance and performance art. Among these institutions, Hara stands out with its approach that regards dance not merely as a form to be staged, but as a mode of thinking and sensing that permeates every stage of artistic production. Hara’s practice offers a compelling model for how body-based arts can be meaningfully accommodated within Turkey, while also providing significant insights into the potential transformation of institutional culture.

“Kim Bu Kızlar?” 16.10. 2024 – 30.10.2024
Concept and Choreography : Canan Yücel Pekiçten ve Filiz Sızanlı
Dancers: Aslı Bostancı, Şiva Canbazoğlu, Melih Kıraç, Canan Yücel Pekiçten, Filiz Sızanlı
Text: Aslı Bostancı, Şiva Canbazoğlu, Melih Kıraç, Canan Yücel Pekiçten, Filiz Sızanlı
Poem: Şiva Canbazoğlu – “Bu göç yatay mı, dikey mi” Vocals and Composition: Aslı Bostancı
Music: Sair Sinan Kestelli ve Mondual
Video and Sound: Cansu Yıldıran- Anlar Single Channel Video
Situated on the outskirts of Istanbul, extending from within the forest toward the city, Hara offers a fertile ground for body-oriented artistic practices—both through its spatial characteristics and its curatorial vision. While dance and performance occasionally appear in the exhibition programs of various institutions in Turkey, they are often positioned as temporary, peripheral, or merely “accompanying” forms. In contrast, Hara places these practices structurally and conceptually at the core of its programming. Here, dance is not approached solely as a spectacle, but as a way of thinking through space, time, the body, and the process of making. Hara’s director Faika Ergüder and exhibitions and events director Yasemin Ülgen emphasize that, since the space’s inception, their desire to create equal ground for all artistic disciplines has converged with a specific aim to address the needs of dance and performance. The steady decline in the number of dance and performance spaces in Istanbul makes these needs all the more visible. Yet Hara approaches this absence not simply as a void to be filled, but through a distinctive and long-term logic of programming.
With both indoor and outdoor spaces, Hara transforms into a site of production where different disciplines can work in dialogue. Yet just as crucial as the physical possibilities of the space is how these possibilities are conceptually framed. In each exhibition, dance and performance programs are either integrated into the exhibition’s conceptual framework or developed in parallel as part of the same production process. This approach positions dance not alongside the exhibition, but as an integral component of it. In doing so, the body becomes more than a representational tool—it emerges as a vessel of thought, a presence that touches space and engages with the viewer.
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One of the structures that sustains this approach is the “Haravan” artist-in-residence program. Offering artists both accommodation and a focused production process, the program extends the body’s relationship with creation beyond the moment of performance to encompass the entire arc of artistic development. It addresses with care one of the most fundamental challenges faced by performance artists: access to research, rehearsal, and space. This commitment contributes to the formation of an institutional memory that views performance not merely as outcome-driven, but as a process-oriented art form. Hara’s location—removed from the city center—is a key factor that enables such focused and distinct practices. Here, time slows down, production deepens, and forms of engagement shift. For time-based yet intensely embodied practices like dance, these conditions create not only a space for presentation, but also for thinking, rehearsing, and transformation. The ephemerality of performance becomes traceable through the relationships built in this context.

Onur Hamilton Karaoğlu: Boşu Boşuna, 29.06.2024
Boşu Boşuna – Bir Direniş Yolu Olarak Antoloji
Concept and Performance: Onur Hamilton Karaoğlu
The performances realized at Hara to date exemplify this approach in tangible ways. For instance, Canan Yücel Pekiçten’s dance performance Chora, which accompanied Güneş Terkol’s exhibition Ses Manzaraları, explored notions of femininity and motherhood through the body. Similarly, Pekiçten’s Yansıyan Senfoni, premiered as part of her solo exhibition Bir Yer Var, was not only thematically but also formally site-specific—crafted in direct dialogue with the spatial context in which it was performed.Cansu Yıldıran’s Vargit Çiçekleri, her first solo exhibition developed over six months as part of Hara’s Haravan residency program, opened up a different space of engagement with dance. The performance Kim Bu Kızlar, created by Canan Yücel Pekiçten and Filiz Sızanlı in response to a photograph of the same title featured in the exhibition, sought to establish new layers of connection by carrying imagery from the interior to the exterior space.
Aside from these examples, Onur Karaoğlu staged his performance Boşu Boşuna at Hara, following its premiere—produced by the Vienna Festival—at Pickle Bar, a setting conceived by the Berlin-based art collective Slavs and Tatars. This event highlights the institution’s interdisciplinary openness toward performance, as well as its active engagement in international dialogue with contemporary artistic production.
The close relationship between dance and exhibition programming continues in the current exhibition Tarihin Neresindeyiz? Zanaat. Ritüel. Dönüşüm. opened on April 19, 2025. The exhibition explores whether artists who do not work in the field of jewelry production can offer new perspectives on understanding the world and time of today through their approach to the craft of jewelry. Developed through regular meetings and discussions since June 2024, this project brings together 17 visual artists, 5 performance artists, 3 writers, 1 sound designer, 1 curator, and 2 exhibition designers. As part of the exhibition, five performers-choreographers—Canan Yücel Pekiçten, Korhan Başaran, Melih Kıraç, Seçil Demircan, and Zinnure Türe—created a performance specifically for the exhibition. The sound design for the performance, titled Takıların Performansı, was crafted by Yusuf Huysal. The three-part video recording of this performance, featured in the exhibition, brings the unique relationship between jewelry and the body into the narrative of the exhibition.
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Canan Yücel Pekiçten: Chora, 30.04.2023
Choreography: Canan Yücel Pekiçten
Dancers: Canan Yücel Pekiçten, Hilal Sibel Pekel, Aslı Bostancı
Music: Guguou
The uniqueness of Hara’s approach to dance is not only spatial or programmatic, but also directly related to how it shapes institutional memory. The institution creates its memory collaboratively with artists, curators, thinkers who contribute to the creative field, visitors, and audiences. This collective structure generates new openings not only in content production but also within the conceptual realm. Based on a model that is non-hierarchical, polyphonic, and grounded in collective thinking, it allows for the emergence of new languages, new concepts, and new areas of thought, driven by the needs identified by artists within their own fields. Building a space for plural encounters rather than a singular voice offers a stance that is not only relevant to today’s cultural politics but also future-oriented. This approach makes the idea of an institution open to change and transformation a reality.
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While most art institutions in Turkey approach dance and performance as “a moment within programs” or “additional production shaped by the budget,” Hara stands out as an institution that designs these fields from the core and opens them up for thinking with its own dynamics. This represents both a content and a structural distinction. For dance to find its place within institutional frameworks as an art form, spatial thinking and curatorial approach must work simultaneously, as seen in the case of Hara. Reflecting on Hara’s practice through this text opens up a space for thinking about how dance and performance arts have found their place within institutional structures in Turkey. Each institution should reconsider how it can create space for these fields based on its own physical and structural possibilities. This is because the body should not only occupy the stage, but also find its place in exhibition spaces, architecture, institutional memory, and future cultural policies.
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*This text is compiled from an interview conducted on April 5, 2025, with Faika Ergüder, the director of Hara, and Yasemin Ülgen, the exhibitions and events director.