ABOUT KARABURUN KAVIMLER KAPISI

AND

3K KAVIMLER KAPISI ASSOCIATION 

In 2000 with the support of our teacher, Sih Ali Yalciner  and the City Theatre of Bornova we  started a summer project at Bornova Ugur Mumcu Culture and Art Gallery. This theatre is connected to the Municipality of Bornova and worked together with Sih Ali Yalciner and joined to the a lot of festivals. Through this, our acquaintance started with performance , called “Rol Ofisi” and went on with the performance, called “Boyayalim Abiler” in Bornova in the summer of 2001. Also, in the summer of 2001 it was the first time that we had gone to Karaburun. Sih Ali Yalciner transformed a olive factory into a theatre studio in Ambarseki Village in Karaburun and has left the original tools for making olive oil inside the studio. Not only did he do this, but also he named the tree in front of the building as “the Plane tree of Nazim Hikmet”. We celebrated it altogether with the poems of Nazim Hikmet and this celebration became the beginning of an adventure that would be very long.

After we had joined to “the International Theatre Festival” that was held by the Ethos Theatre in Ankara in 2000 and 2001, we perfomed the workshop “ We are a family” made with the Artistic Director of Amsterdam Hogeschool vor de Kunsten and his student Gonca Yalciner that came from the Netherlands to Bornova thanks to Sih Ali Yalciner in June 2002. After this workshop, we went on our workshops in Karaburun. There we performed our new project “the Prophet-fool” made with Rene Kres, the Artistic Director of Amsterdam Global Clowns School, to the villagers of Ambarseki. From one side, we started with Sih Ali Yalciner the project “ Velesbit” with the poems of him and the poems of Sahika Tekand about our monotonous lives. On this project we benefited from the dance-workshops of Isolte Avila, one of the founders of the Amsterdam Sign Dance Collective, and her dance partner David Bower, a Hollywood actor, and Indian dancer Farin Ramdjan.

We based on the “bio-mechanic” technique and performed at many a theatre, at the Youth Centers and on the streets. We received even an invitation from Beijing, the capital city of China, but unfortunately we couldn’t go there because of the SARS illness in China.

In 2003, at the theatre studio in Karaburun we worked with Bruin Otten and Gonca Yalciner on the project “12 Angry Men” adapted from the film of Reginald Rose. We learned the importance of the dramaturgy on the analysing the charachter and the text. And also we have started to look for the kazans already in the winter. While working on the Kazandibi project, we made the story of Samed Behrengi, called “the “Little Black Fish” and composed the songs and made the texts poetic. It became a musical for the children. On these two performances we benefited from the workshops of Tugay Basar about the body percussion, the workshops of Miriam Dcriks about improvisation, the workshop of Jan Kroll about acrobatics and juggling, the workshops of René Kres about clowns and dance workshop of Isolte Avila and David Bower. So, we obtained a try-out with the subject “Jealousy” with lots of dance and music in it. We joined in Ankara to the International Ethos Festival and joined to a festival held on the Victory Day in Amsterdam. Bruin Otten not only opened us the door of Amsterdam Hogeschool vor de Kunsten but also let us have lessons from two teachers about creating spaces and dancing.

In 2004 the workshops about the nature and outdoors were made with Gonca Yalciner and Marjolein Roeleveld. After these workshops we started to work on the texts and made lots of try-outs and later on worked on Lysistrata. We had the chance to perform our performances “the Orchestra of Kazandibi” and “The Little Black Fish” in Florence and in Chieti in Italy thanks to the organisations of René Kres and Sih Ali Yalciner. But because of the bureaucratic reasons, the people who have the green passport had the chance to go to Italy. The idea of founding an association occured owing to these kinds of difficulties. Moreover, we started to work on the play of Bertolt Brecht , called “the Informer” in Italy. When we came back to our theatre studio in Karaburun, we went on working on both plays and made lots of music and theatre workshops with the villager children there. In February 2005 we founded the 3K Kavimler Kapisi Art Association and started to go on our works under this name. We performed several times in  Izmir, Kusadasi, in Ankara at the International Ethos Festivals, the Amsterdam Victory Day Festival, Istanbul Tunnel Festival. On the 23^rd April, the day celebrated in Turkey as the International Children Day, we had a concert with the Dutch musical group, called “the Roman Ensemble” and performed together with them. In 2005 TheaterWerk NL organized a festival in Holland named “Living with Differences” For this festival we worked with theater director Gonca Yalciner, from Hogeschool vor de Kunsten Amsterdam, a play written by Yilmaz Onay, “Prometheia” In October we made a tour with the theater group, De Furie, who worked Prometheia, the same text, in Dutch. We played “Prometheia” Utrecht, Arnhem, Amsterdam and Hoorn, in Holland.

Nowadays we are working a play written by Aziz Nesin, “Pirtlatan Bal”, with poor children for 23 April in Izmir and 4-5 May in Amsterdam. This project  is to work with that children from poor places especially who has not possibilities to go and make theater. We have been going on not only our international cultural and artistic activities but also being a part of several festivals and activities held in Bornova and in the many a town of Izmir.

 Translated by : KUTAY SORGUC                                        Edited by : KUTAY SORGUC