Nazlı Gürlek Hodder

Sand Dance

2017
Single channel HD video, no sound, 13' 19'' loop

Sand Dance is a cyclical performance made for the camera translating five ancient ritual paintings (Çatalhöyük, 7,500 BC – 5,700 BC, Turkey) into dance. It was staged and filmed on a beach near Istanbul. The performance employs the ritualistic power of these paintings that rely on complex abstract patterns created with a few repeated basic geometrical forms, and converts pictorial patterns to movement patterns. It asks questions in relation to social organization forms as well as being an ode to collectivity and a way of seeing the world as a complex web of interconnected patterns and relationships. 

With support from Çatalhöyük Research Project

​Performers: Aslı Bostancı, İdil Kemer, Gasia Papazyan, Hilal Sibel Peker, Leyla Postalcıoğlu
Costumes: Letisya Tapan
Production: Burak Çevik, Merve Ertufan

Thanks to Ian Hodder

​Exhibition view from "Floating Tactics After a Sunken Island", Daire Gallery, Istanbul, October 07-November 11, 2017