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Symposium Full Program incl. Abstracts

 

OTTOMAN EMPIRE & EUROPEAN THEATRE
IV.
The Turkish Subject in Ballet and Dance
from the Sixteenth Century Onwards
Vienna (Act I)

A Commemoration of the 250^th Anniversary of Don Juan ou Le Festin de Pierre (1761)by Gasparo Angiolini (1731-1803) and Christoph W. Gluck (1714-1787) in Vienna

 

FRIDAY, APRIL 29th, 2011

10.00-10.30 Opening Ceremony

Helga Dostal (ITI-UNESCO Centrum Austria)

Exc. K. Ecved Tezcan (Ambassador of the Turkish Republic)

Michael Hüttler (Don Juan Archiv Wien)

 

10:30-12:45 Session I  The Case of Le Turc généreux and the Viennese Context

Chair: Markus Köhbach (Vienna)

 

1. Bruce Alan Brown (Los Angeles)

What the Envoy Saw: Diplomacy, Theatre and Ahmet Resmî Efendi’s Embassy to Vienna, 1758

 

When the Ottoman envoy Ahmed Resmî Efendi visited Vienna during the spring of 1758 to announce the accession of Sultan Mustafa III, elaborate ceremonies and spectacle were naturally part of the protocol. The embassy of Ahmed Resmî and his numerous and colourful entourage were of great interest to the Viennese, as is evident from newspaper and diplomatic accounts; and as has long been known, while in the Habsburg capital Ahmed Resmî was entertained by a performance of a new ballet by Hilverding and Starzer, Le Turc généreux. Less well known, at least among musicologists and dance historians, is the fact that Ahmed Resmî himself wrote an account of his embassy. Though his report makes only scant mention of theatre, this and other sources nevertheless suggest that there was a certain convergence between the goals of this important figure of the Ottoman reform movement and those of the director of Vienna’s court theatres, Count Giacomo Durazzo.
During his trip Ahmed Resmî was concerned to collect information on the geography, government, economy, and customs of the areas he traversed, in order to help dispel the ignorance about Europe that was rather typical of the Ottoman court bureaucracy. Twice during his stay in the Habsburg capital Ahmed Resmî and his entourage attended performances in the Burgtheater, and the programme on the second occasion seems to have been calculated with his information-gathering agenda in mind, including, as it did, not only Le Turc généreux, but also two other national ballets, which extended Ahmed Resmî’s view (so to speak) beyond the Habsburg domains. One ballet was of English sailors; the other depicted a Dutch fair, a type of “temporary town” about which Ahmed Resmî expressed interest in his report on his later embassy to Prussia. Le Turc généreux itself was not just an example of the popular genre of “Turkish” theatre, but also a product of Durazzo’s effort, in the aftermath of Chancellor Kaunitz’s renversement des alliances, to expand the horizons of his theatres by looking to France for inspiration. The following year, 1759, would see another Viennese ballet (Angiolini and Gluck’s Zéphire et Flore) that, like Le Turc généreux, was inspired by an entrée from Fuzelier and Rameau’s Les Indes galantes, as well as Durazzo’s recruitment of the playwright Charles-Simon Favart as his Parisian theatrical agent. Visual representations and music survive for both Le Turc généreux and La Foire hollandoise, affording us a quite precise notion of what the envoy saw – and heard.

 

2. Michael Malkiewicz (Salzburg)

Music to the Engraving of Le Turc généreux by F. A. Hilverding

At the centre of this paper is the often published engraving by Bernardo Bellotto / Canaletto (1721-1780) for the ballet Le Turc généreux (1758) by Franz Anton Hilverding (1710-1768). “Le Turc Genereux / Ballet Pantomime executé à Vienne sur le Teatre près de la Cour le 26 Avril, 1758. / Presente a S. Ex. Mons. le Comte de Durazzo. Conseiler intime actuel de LL.MM.JJ.et R.R. et Surintendant / General des Plaisirs et Spectacles &.&.&. par Ber.[nardo] Belotti dit Canaletto Peintre de S.M. le Roi de Pol. Elec. de Saxe. &.&.&. 1759.”
This well-known iconographic source of the early ballet en action has been hardly analyzed in detail. The scenario (libretto) for the ballet itself is not known. The plot was probably adapted from the first entrée “Le Turc généreux” of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opéra-ballet Les Indes Galantes (1735). Hilverding’s ballet was performed on the occasion of the visit of Turkish diplomats at the imperial court in Vienna in 1758. In the secondary literature about this engraving, authors usually refer to the asymmetric constellation of the group in the middle of this scene detecting the new aesthetics of the ballet after its reform in the second half of the eighteenth century. What has been neglected in most of the cases is that the music for this ballet has been preserved. The music can be been attributed to the Viennese composer of ballet music Joseph Starzer (1702-1787) and exists in two slightly different copies of the voice parts: a) in Cesky Krumlov (CZ-K 58); and b) an extended version with additional numbers is located in Copenhagen (KTB 132). In contrast to the engraving, the music for the ballet has never been edited and was never the subject of a closer examination. In this paper I shall focus on the depicted dance scene together with its music. How many ‘Turkish elements’ provides the music of “Le Turc généreux”? Which moment of the ballet is shown in the engraving and could an appropriate moment also be found in the score? In this paper I am definitely not trying to develop a fictional ‘reconstruction’ of a missing choreography to a given score. The focus is on the iconographic and musical topoi, which must be read according to its own criteria, the engraving in the genre of iconographic sources, the music within the genre of ballet music. I will try a complementing analysis of the dance and music and show what this kind of analysis can give to a better understanding of the ballet.
In addition to my considerations about Hilverding’s ballet, two more iconographic sources of eighteenth-century ballets will be discussed in relation to the existing music: a) an engraving by Ferdinando Galli-Bibbiena of the final ballet of the opera Costanza e Fortezza (Prague 1723) by Johann Joseph Fux (choreography: Simon Pietro Levassori della Motta; ballet music: Nicola Matteis); b) an engraving after John Boydell for the ballet Medée et Jason (London 1781) by Jean-Georges Noverre (music: J.J. Rodolphe).
Each of these three very different examples represents a key scene of the history of ballet in the eighteenth century. The engravings do not necessarily show a specific scene, but are rather representative of the entire ballet. In all three cases, they have been created after the performances and, therefore, appeal to the real situation of the performance itself. The subject of this paper is directed to a combined dance and music analysis. How to proceed methodically? What new insights may result from this method in contrast to a pure music or pure dance analysis?

 

3. Vera Grund (Salzburg)

Turkish Ballets in the Collection of C(eský Krumlov

In Vienna’s court music, exoticism was not as common as it was in cities like Paris or Venice. In the seventeenth-century repertoire hardly any work with extra-European themes can be found, although court composers originated from the Venice area, where Turkish operas had already occurred after 1685. The art form that finally assumed the “Turquerie” in Vienna – even before the French theatre with its opéra-comique did – was dance. From the year 1752 a long series of ballets with extra-European topics can be found, presumably no coincidence at all, considering that in these years Franz Anton Christoph Hilverding held the position of “Hofballettmeister”. The Schwarzenberg archive in C(eský Krumlov preserves the most comprehensive collection of Viennese ballets of the years 1750 to 1790. Many of them exist only in this repository. Within this corpus, about a dozen works with extra-European subjects can be found that build the base for this analysis. The nature of functional music itself foreshadows problems related to authorship of the musical as well as the choreographic compositions. Composers are limited to Joseph Starzer, Christoph Willibald Gluck and Franz Aspelmayr, whereas choreographers such as Gasparo Angiolini, Carlo Bernardi, Franz Anton Hilverding, Jean-Georges Noverre and Giuseppe Salomoni are mentioned. Titles like Le sultan généreux convey the impression that the image of the Turk did not conform to that of the barbaric “Sauvage”, but already embraced enlightened thoughts. Consequently, the socio-critical aspect inherited from French authors dealing with exotic themes in these years acquired a varied connotation in Vienna; it is, so to speak, a question of “Viennese-Turkish” works.

 

12:45-14:15 Lunchbreak

14:15-15:45  Session II  Le Turc et la Cour Française
Chair: Michael Hüttler (Vienna)

 

1. David Chataignier (Paris)

The Role of the Turk in French Seventeenth-Century Court Spectacle: The Carrousel de Monseigneur le Dauphin (1662)

In 1662, to celebrate the birth of his son and heir to the throne of France, Louis XIV organized a spectacular equestrian ballet, the Carrousel de Monseigneur le Dauphin, which took place at the Louvre at the beginning of June. Official newspapers, rhymed accounts written by noble courtiers, and reports from well-known witnesses, such as Mlle Desjardins and Charles Perrault, relate the splendour of the performance.
As was usual for this type of court spectacle, all the participants were of high rank (in this case the king himself performed) and magnificently costumed; here they represented different nations. The king, dressed as a Roman emperor, led the procession immediately followed by his brother, Monsieur the duc d’Orléans, disguised as a Persian. The fourth and fifth quadrilles, led by the duc d’Enghien and the duc de Guise, respectively depicted Indians and Native Americans. Central to all of these, the third quadrille was led by the duc de Condé — le Grand Condé — dressed as a Turk and displaying the Muslim crescent as his emblem.
Given the magnificence of the carrousel and according to the numerous reports of the event, there is no doubt that a positive image of these nations was staged. However, this raises questions regarding the meaning of this exhibition. For what reason did the king of France cast pagan nations — and particularly the Turks — in a positive light for a celebration in a realm known as the “eldest daughter of the Church”? Were the selected nations chosen for dramatic purposes, or do they deploy political significance? These questions are particularly relevant since at the time of the carrousel, Christendom had been engaged in war against Islam for almost two decades, facing numerous attacks led by the Ottoman armies in the Mediterranean and in Central Europe. Furthermore, in subsequent years, Louis XIV would send expeditionary forces to fight the Ottomans in Hungary and to assist the Venetian troops in the Siege of Candia.
I will address the role of the Turk in the Carrousel de Monseigneur le Dauphin mainly by comparing his image with those found in earlier ballets of the period and by situating the event amidst the Turkish vogue in seventeenth-century French literature.

 

2. Laura Naudeix (Angers/Paris)

Scanderbeg on the French Operatic Stage: the Turkish Subject as a Mediation for Fiction

 

Scanderbeg, the great Albanian fighter of Turks, is one of the most famous oriental heroes: already present in French fictions of the end of the seventeenth century and of the beginning of the eighteenth, he appeared on the stage of the ballet as one of other examples of the chivalrous virtues as soon as 1723, on the stage of the college of Louis le Grand, and mainly in the tragédie en musique Scanderbeg, first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique, the Paris Opera, in 1735. But in reality, the libretto has been left unfinished by its author, Houdar de La Motte, dead in 1731, and disappointed by his failure with his last opera, Sémélé, in 1709. It seems that Scanderbeg was in reality a project of the opera directors Rebel and Francoeur, who were also the composers of the score, and who probably ordered another poet, La Serre, to finish the poem.
We would like to come back to the context of such an opera: wonderfully staged for the creation, with a marvellous scenery by Servandoni, revived in 1763 for the court in Fontainebleau with a new production, this opera is one of the main examples of the taste for the “Turquerie”, understood as the manifestation of magnificence, and not so far from the imagery of fairy tales. But Scanderbeg is also the first French opera written on an historical subject, in the context of the production of ballets on oriental and contemporaneous matter, and only a few years after Jephté (Pellegrin, Montéclair, 1732), the first and only French tragédie en musique on a biblical subject. In this context, Scanderbeg can also be considered as a testimony of the shifting in the conception of fiction. Out of the classical model, the opera is, as the literary fairy tale, a modern genre without any model. We would like to show that, choosing a Turkish subject, Rebel and Francoeur want to assume both the marvel of the representation and the dignity of the serious subject, and by doing this, they suggest a kind of continuity of the fiction – that is, a whole invented world and subject without any direct reference in reality – from Wonderland to history, through the oriental inspiration.

 

15:45-16:00 Coffee Break

16:00-17:30 Session III  Ballet alla Turca and Baroque

Chair: Bernd Roger Bienert (Vienna)

1. Strother Purdy (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

Semiotic Aspects of the Baroque, the Ballet, and the Turkish Relation

 

European interest in Turkey naturally increased with the growth of Ottoman power from the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmet II, then unsurprisingly diminished after Kara Mustafa withdrew from the second siege of Vienna in 1683 That is to speak militarily, for otherwise, from literature to the decorative arts, the foundation had been laid for a European turcomania that was to last to the time of Byron and beyond, subsiding finally in the mid-nineteenth century to such effects as the “Turkish Corner” to be found in Victorian living rooms.  During the Baroque era, which substantially coincided with the subject period of the symposium, the sixteenth century to the time of Christoph W. Gluck, there was a dramatic shift, or split, in the nature of ballet, most notably from  ballet d'opéra to ballet d'action, accompanied by intense theorizing as to the direction ballet should take. Gluck, with the collaborative efforts of Gasparo Angiolini, was very much involved. It was inevitable that the mode of Turkish themes would contemporaneously appear in the ballet, and reflect, even possibly influence, its historical progression. As such its effect on the audience could vary from that of a decorative amusement, so infuriating to Wagner decades later, to being principal representation, movement akin to music, but “language” (of the body) independent of speech or song. Decorative or essential, it conveyed meaning, a semiosis, here the “Turkish relation. ” Was that meaning or message negative or positive? Was it adapted to the movements of a dance to greater or lesser effect? I hope to take some steps of use and interest into this complex of history and aesthetics.

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2. Stefanie Steiner (Karlsruhe) 

A “Ballet of Turks” in Brunswick: Baroque Theatre Culture at the Court of Duke Anton Ulrich of Brunswick-Wolfenbuettel (1666–1714)

 

At the time of Duke Anton Ulrich of Brunswick-Wolfenbuettel, Brunswick became a prospering centre of baroque festival culture and musical life. Anton Ulrich was himself well renowned as an author of plays and libretti. Highly educated, he was also a connoisseur of French and Italian festive culture and was acquainted with German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
At Brunswick, at that time one of the most popular commercial centres, the so-called Winter=Messe (winter fair) was regularly held (from 1681 onwards, even twice a year). Connected with this event, many opera performances and ballets for foreign visitors were staged, often with opulent scenery and stage machinery created by the famous stage designer Johann Oswald Harms. When, in 1690, the newly built opera house at the Brunswick Hagenmarkt was opened, Harms was appointed “Maschinen Meister, Cammer Diener und Mahler” (machine operator, valet and painter) responsible for the technical equipment of the Brunswick theatre and other festive events.
One fine example of the blooming festival culture at Anton Ulrich’s Brunswick court occurred at the opening ceremonies of the Winter=Messe in 1697: a “Türcken=Ballett, und Bauren= oder Hirten=MASQUERADE” (Ballet of Turks, and peasants or shepherds masquerade). This event accounts for the major importance and high standards of festival culture at the Brunswick court. Not less than three operas (entitled Il Pastore d’ Anfriso, Circe and Penelope) were staged during the first days of the fair. Subsequently, all foreign visitors with their wives were invited to an opulent ball at Brunswick castle where eight noble members of the court performed a ballet in Turkish costumes (among them was also Anton Ulrich’s youngest son, prince Ludwig Rudolf). Shortly afterwards, some dedication poems were published about the noble contributors to the ballet, delivering not only a brief description of the event but also revealing valuable insights into certain stereotypes and commonplaces attributed to the ‘Turk’ at the period in question: male Turks, for example, are described as wild and martial, whereas female Turks are characterized as beautiful and seductive.
In my talk, I will discuss the Brunswick Türcken=Ballett from 1697 against the background of baroque festive culture in general and question the ‘Turkish’ clichés shining through the subsequently published dedication poems.

18:30 Dinner 

SATURDAY, APRIL 30TH, 2011

10:00-11:30 Session IV  Dancing Turkishness

Chair:  Nedret Kuran Burçog(lu (Istanbul)

1. Haluk Öyküm Lumal? (Ankara)  

The Contributions of Folk Dance of Turkish Origin to Turkish Ballet

 

Folk dances of Turkish origin settled in Anatolia by taking the vast and rich folk culture of Middle Anatolia, and later carried their deep-rooted cultural heritage first to the Ottoman Empire and then to the Turkish Republic. The art of dance in the Ottoman Empire had gone through two important eras starting from the 1500s until the 1900s: the first era was during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (r.1520-1566), and the second developed during the reign of Mahmud II (r.1808-1839), when Donizetti Pasha (1788-1856) was invited to the palace in Istanbul. The art of ballet which has a great position among Western arts had drawn great attention. However, the arrival of a true Western ballet to the splendour of the Ottoman Palace meant that Ottoman colour and texture were added to the composition of ballet. The ideal of westernization of the Turkish Republic which was founded following these periods implies the maintenance of the relations with the West, which the Ottoman Empire had tried to found. The practice of the examples of Western culture in Turkey could be perceived in this way, at least for ballet.
This paper aims to search the cultural traces rooted in history in the perception of the art of classical ballet in Turkey, that is, the effects and contributions of Turkish folk dances to our art of ballet. The paper aims to examine examples of Western dance during the reign of the Ottoman Empire, and some produced works of art such as Longa, as well as pioneering examples of twenty-first-century Turkish dance art such as “Çesmebasi", “Yoz Döngü", and “Kurban”.
All these examples will search for traces of interaction of Anatolian folk culture and the Ottoman Empire between the Palace and the West.

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2. Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller (Vienna)  

The Quest for a Choreographic alla Turca: Is there a specific ‘Turkish step’?

The music of the eighteenth century was not all too specific in regard to Turkey. Thinking in a Euro-centred way, there was no interest whatsoever in dwelling on the characteristics of a certain non- European country, and therefore, as for instance in the case of “alla turca”, the music was adorned with musical ingredients which were limited in most cases to pure superficiality applied like ornaments on to a European garment. These explications pursue the question of whether and to what extent the choreographer was also proceeding in a similar way. Did he also limit himself to superficiality? Is there a vocabulary of steps “alla turca”? Which genre of dancing did the “magnanimous Turk” occupy and what in fact did he dance? Were there corresponding choreographic methods?

 

11:30-11:45  Coffee Break

11:45-14:00 Session V Genre and Gender: Questions on Ballets Turcs and Turkish Dances

Chair: Helga Dostal (Vienna)

1. Güzin Yamaner (Ankara)

The Position of Women Dancers from Middle Asian to Modern Turkish Dances

Before the adventure of migrating to Anatolia where they settled, for Turks the art of dance had an important place on the base of their daily life, political life and religious beliefs during their life in Middle Asia. In Middle Asia, there are signs that women in Turkish tribes had a more egalitarian position in comparison to many other sexist social structures. Undoubtedly, talking about a completely nonsexist society is not possible; but by considering historical evidence, it is possible to think that matriarchy was also present in some parts of this society. In the light of this historical knowledge, the art of dance has an important position in terms of our subject. Turks migrating from Middle Asia to reach Anatolia combined their dance figures, dancing styles and dance music with those of numberless cultures that had had settled before them and that came after them. This helped to create a very different dancing ground. But the time which is being talked about is the 1100s and Turks who had adopted Islam had had to change their political and artistic life of polytheistic religion into a very different and irreversibleform. This change undoubtedly affected all types of art and aspects of the society, but changes affecting women particularly projected sexism on to women dancers and gave birth to many different negative results. Over a thousand years, two big world empires, the Ottoman and the Seljukian, as well as the young Republic which was founded with important social power, could not erase the signs of this negative change. Moreover, however much the government has been powerful, the sexist attitude towards women has achieved to catch women dancers.
Turkey has planned a cultural future consisting of the cultural wealth of both old and historical aspects of their settlements and the new and contemporary cultural identity. In this plan, the contribution, or role of women in every genre of art was given importance. The appearance of women as dancers was one of the ideals of the young Republic. But since gender equality cannot be seen in every part of the society, at the same period and in the same city or town one woman would set her heart on dancing and would be trained as dancer, while on the other hand another woman could be punished violently for such a wish. This attitude generally reflects a concerned approach to the art of dance. And there also have appeared great conflicts. The woman dancer was exposed to various sexist attitudes during the reign of the Ottoman Empire. Since the foundation of the Republic, conflicts in the art of dance have continued for nearly eighty years.
Here, this paper aims to analyze the phases that women dancers have experienced from the matriarchal social life in Middle Anatolia to the gender inequalities of twenty-first-century Turkey.

 

2. Selçuk Göldere (Ankara)

Turqueries: European Ballet with Turkish Content According to Metin And and Neo-Ottoman Turkish State Opera-Ballet Productions

This paper, indebted to the extensive research of my great teacher Metin And, aims to follow Turkish images in Western opera, theatre and ballet performances which were influenced by Ottoman invasions in European lands beginning in the sixteenth century; and after this negative association with the Turks, to examine the mostly negative, but some positive examples relating to Turks on European stages from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries onwards. After that research I would like to examine that image of the Turks in relation to the Neo-Ottoman image which has been created by the Turkish State and Opera Ballet stages in Turkey during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In conclusion I would like to compare the aesthetic and historical/political meanings of these two images of the Turk in opera, theatre and ballet performances during their respective time periods. Metin And approached the art of dance from different angles both historically and critically. In Gönlü Yüce Türk:Yüzyillar Boyunca Bale Eserlerinde Türkler, he followed the historical trails of Western stages and found Turkish characters or stories about Turks in ballet performances between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. His book suggests that working on the history of dance had some deficiencies and disadvantages compared with the history of theatre or opera. The reason for that was because the sources were very limited since almost none of the ballet performances have been documented on paper. The main studies which had been published about the art of dance were also few in number. In general, the sources were widely varied and scattered. In Gönlü Yüce Türk, Metin And mentions two main reasons why Turks have been presented in many ballet pieces. The first was “aesthetic” and the second “historical/political”. And states that in the beginning, the writings and memoirs of Western travellers journeying in the East motivated the curiosity of Europeans about these unknown lands and their life styles, best reflected in orientalist paintings. Turkish ambassadors appearing in European cities had also received much attention. In historical and political contexts, Turks as bearers of big empires had a great influence on world history; therefore, their relation to the western empires provided a rich source for the themes and plots of ballet pieces. Single events like military victories or the Sultan’s coming into power also constituted stories of these ballets. Well-known Turkish figures and their stories also found a place in ballet performances.
Metin And forms the sections in the book according to the contents of certain ballets. These performances in which Turks appear took place mostly in France, Italy and Britain. The appearance of Turks in ballets started with the horse-ballets and in victory processions in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The “turquerie” fashion as a new style was an important influence reflected in ballet performances. Also the curiosity for dervish whirling was quite high and adaptations of these ritualistic practices could be found in various ballet performances. The use of Turkish characters next to different nationalities was also performed. In addition to these, well known political incidents like the siege of Vienna found their place in ballet performances. As an example, Les Indes Galantes was a very important political opera-ballet performed in 1735 in Académie Royale de Musique, where one section was called Le Turc Généreux, and was based on the true character of Vezir Topal Osman Pas,a. Metin And states that in the second half of the nineteenth century, with the rising of nationalistic feelings in the Balkan areas where Russians emerged as their “guardian”, ballet had been used as a propagandist tool against the Ottomans. One such example was famous choreographer Petipa’s Roxana, The Beauty of Montenegro staged in 1878 which stirred up nationalistic feelings in the Balkans against the Turks. He underlines the fact that the ballets which were about Turks or had stories related to Turks were keystones in the history of ballet. According to And, in these ballets, one could identify different styles overcoming others in terms of aesthetic perceptions. Therefore ballets which had contents about the Turks were also marked by their different aesthetic styles. According to And’s analysis, whether or not this was a deliberate choice or only a coincidence, one could not guess. And provides examples of such ballets, stating that Ballo di Donne Turche was one of the first examples of a melodramatic ballet, where L’Europe Galante had been the start of opera-ballets. One of Noverre’s ballets, Les Fetes ou Les Jalousies ou les Fêtes du Serail, was given as an important example of ballets d’action in his letters. Among many operas, we learn that the originator of modern ballet Jean Georges Noverre had created three ballets about Turks in the eighteenth century. Another choreographer, Franz Hilverding, created Le Turc Généreux and Gasparo Angiolini created II Solimano Secondo ballets during the same period.

 

3. Bert Gstettner (Vienna) 

Angelo Soliman revisited - aspects of a choreography about an outstanding personality.

 

The choregraphic play ‘Angelo*Soliman – ballet d ´action‘ was intended as a requiem commemorating the 200th anniversary of Angelo Soliman's death on November 21, 1996. The premiére was given at the Museums Palace Vienna, July 11, 1996.
The play is choreographed by Bert Gstettner and was performed by Tanz*Hotel.

Skin - holding together what would fall apart. Skin - wonderful soft, gentle, warm, nice to touch. Hair, soft, strong or curly. Beard harsh and scratchy, nails protecting our fingers and toes. Skin – sometimes sweaty, sometimes calloused. Skin - pink on the special places of the body. Skin covering the organs, covering the bones, the tongue, the throat. Skin forms the guts, it contains the brain, it covers the testicles and the eyes. Skin hangs from the flesh when you are old. Skin is tasty. Skin feels good on other skin. You can burn it, you can slice it, you can make it nice with oil and powder, you may touch and love it. In co-production with the sun, skin is able to make freckles, a sun burn, and even change color. From skin, leather is made. It keeps your feet warm, makes a biker’s jacket or a lady’s crocodile bag as well as pretty gloves.

The human skin appears in a wide range of different colors. Torture is done by taking off the skin from the flesh. On the corpse it does not hurt much anymore. The flayed skin can be stuffed and put next to other animals somewhere on the wall.

 

Also it can be put on a wooden model reminding us of that astonishing almost unbelievable career in the 18th century of a black man in white Austria who, at the end, belonged to the emperors museum and nothing more. At some point he was put away with the other exhibits and then the whole stuffed collection was accidently burned in the museum’s attic. For good reasons, this story is still among us, maybe to let us find better ways of treating each other.

Ch.W. Glucks music for Gasparo Angiolinis ballet Don Juan ou le Festin de Pierre from 1761 as well as Semiramis from 1765 were a wonderful inspiration for creating the atmosphere in which I imagined Angelo Soliman´s life. I left it to my imagination and ideas in working together with the dancers by not just follow an existing notation. I rather tried to form a new piece inspired by the marvelous music, allthough we were not absolutly familiar with the practice of historical dance. I chose music that was about 250 years old unencumbered by the burden of reconstruction. If Gluck would have had the story of Angelo Soliman he just would have rearranged some of his musical scores to adapt the expressions. We had no Gluck and no Angiolini notation but the human movements as the strongest source to reoriginate the scores.

Bert Gstettner, Vienna April 2011

 

14:30 Brief Visit to Don Juan Archiv Wien and Following Lunch

 

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ISTANBUL (Act II)

THURSDAY, JUNE 9TH, 2011

10.00-11.00 Opening Ceremony

Michael Hüttler (Don Juan Archiv Wien)

Exc. Paul Jenewein (Austrian Consul General) 

Doris Danler (Austrian Cultural Forum Director)

Ilber Ortayli (President of Topkapi Palace Museum)

 

11:00-12:30 Session I Politics and Arts and the Greater Mediterranean in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Chair: Günsel Renda (Istanbul)

1. Dirk Van Waelderen (Brussels/Leuven)  

“Heroes and villains”: Habsburg Supremacy over the Ottomans in Triumphal Celebrations in the Spanish Netherlands

When the siege of Vienna in 1683 by the Ottoman Turks ended with a victory for the armies of Emperor Leopold I (1653-1705; member of the Habsburg’s Austrian branch) and his allies, the news was announced in the Spanish ruled Southern Netherlands (today: Belgium) through prints and public celebrations. For many years Charles II king of Spain (1661-1700, last of the Habsburg’s Spanish branch) had been losing his control over events in the Southern Netherlands: the land was impoverished by the war against the French king Louis XIV (1643-1715) and was economically in ruins. On top of this the Catholic Church in the Southern Netherlands, one of the most ardent supporters of the Spanish monarch, also had to tighten its purse strings because of the economic crisis and was divided because of the Jansenist conflict. Remarkable public celebrations picturing the victories on the Ottomans, like the ommeganck (Festive parade) in Antwerp of 8 September 1685 or the Triumphale pompa (Triumphal pomp) of 1686 in Brussels, were widely supported by the urban and religious elites of the Southern Netherlands. Triumphal arches and theatrical cars accompanied with music and dances displayed the victorious Roman emperor and the Spanish monarch together, pretending the Spanish Habsburgs were still in full power. The Jesuits especially supported the celebrations on the Ottoman theme to improve their status amongst the population. It seems to have been an attempt to keep the momentum they gained after the centenary celebrations of the liberation of Antwerp (1585-1685) by Alessandro Farnese, governor of the Spanish Netherlands in 1685. The urban elites of Antwerp, the clergy, guilds and the city magistrate used the theme not only to support the Church and the central government, but also to enhance the image of the city as an international trade capital, although its prosperity was decreasing rapidly. One can wonder whether the portrayal of the Ottoman Turks by the elites during these celebrations was part of the traditional display of the exotic enemy of the previous centuries or whether there were any timely adjustments.
The portrayal of the Ottomans was done in a very symbolic language. The Catholic Church and “zyn uytverkoren volk” (its chosen people) were victorious against the Ottomans who were shown as a “macht der hellen” (hell’s power) or as “Helsche Furien” (hell’s furies). Noble commanders of the Southern Netherlands in the imperial army were pictured as “heroes of Mars”. They imperilled their lives but won against the overwhelming numbers of the Ottoman armies and their relentless attacks. The Ottomans were displayed as “savage, cruel and cunning fighters” with superior weaponry. Analyzing the prints and public celebrations on the theme of the Ottoman Turks will reveal what was most prominent in the display: the role of the Church as the cause of the miraculous victory on the “infidels” or the Catholic Roman emperor and his courageous army commanders? Or was perhaps the image in the theatrical performances both for religious and governmental elites equally beneficial?

 

2. Bent Holm (Copenhagen)  

Dancing the Identity: Danish alla turca Ballets and the National Self-Image

In Danish theatre the Turk as a ballet figure was introduced in the eighteenth century in smaller ballets like The Adventurous Janissaries (‘De forløbne Janitskarer’) by Antonio Sacco in 1764, - the same year when he staged his version of Angiolini’s Don Juan ballet in Copenhagen - and The Magnanimous Turk (‘Den ædelmodige Tyrk’) by Vincenzo Galeotti from 1779. As the successor of Sacco, Galeotti represents a kind of artistic internationalization, which makes him a characteristic figure of the era. He was active in among other places Venice, Vienna, Milan and Copenhagen where he became the head of the Royal Danish Ballet in 1781. That same year he staged his Don Juan ballet in Copenhagen. Furthermore, the Turk was presented in intermezzi and divertissements in various operas and musical comedies, in translated works as well as Danish originals. In that connection, the choreographed Turk is primarily a foreign and exotic figure. However, with the introduction of genuine Romanticism accompanied with a need for new orientation due to fundamental and mental changes in the social, urban and political conditions, the Oriental dimension obtained a much more significant position in the early nineteenth century. As a matter of fact, the dramatic poem by Adam Oehlenschläger, Aladdin (1805) plays a central role in the construction of a modern Danish identity. Danish ballet’s most important figure, August Bournonville, created a stage version of Aladdin in 1839. And what is more, in 1855 he created his own choreographed version of that national myth in the shape of the “Turkish” fairy-tale ballet Abdallah, which by the way he also staged during his short career in Vienna. A significant part of Bournonville’s artistic project concerned the national history and self-image. In 1832 he prepared a historical ballet about the seventeenth-century Danish naval hero Cort Adeler and his fights, in Venetian service, with the Turks. The project was not realized until 1870. The overall historical premises had changed to a degree, so that the performance appeared as anachronistic. Nevertheless, the image of the Turk remained intact.

 

12:30-13:30 Lunchbreak

13:30-15:00 Session II  Reflections of the Imperial Ottoman in European Ballet

Chair: Filiz Ali (Istanbul)

1. Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller (Vienna)

The Quest for a Choreographic alla Turca: Veiling and Unveiling

Veiling and unveiling, together with the “harem”, have fired the imaginations of generations of librettists. But in what way was this veiling and unveiling, was the harem put onto the ballet stage? Was the veil – if it was used at all – a purely superficial item or was it used for a choreographic “evolution”, involving not only a single figure but – as was the case in the nineteenth century – whole groups of dancers? And what was the reason for using the veil? Did the choreographer only intend to hide or disclose the “adornments” of the female body or did he also envisage it as a decorative means, which consequently, detached from the narrative, could gain a life of its own?

 

2. Evren Kutlay Baydar (Istanbul)

The ‘Sultan’ Image in Selected Ballets from the Eighteenth to the Early Nineteenth Centuries

Turquerie in ballets employs Turkish clothing, scenes of Ottoman seraglios and harems, the “Sultan” image, “Turkish ambassadors”, etc. In this paper, among all those Turkish elements, “Sultan” oriented selected ballets will be discussed, since the “Sultan” image, both the Sultan himself and/or his wife, was at the centre of most of the Turquerie stage works. We will try to include as many “Sultan” images as possible, although there were many choreographers (“compositore del ballo”) who wrote with similar titles. To narrow our research, we will limit our time frame to the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The examples of Sultan-oriented ballets we will present chronologically include Die Fünf Sultaninnen (1772) by Jean Georges Noverre, Solimano II (Venice 1773) by Gasparo Angiolini with music also by him, La Féte Du Serail (Paris 1788) by Nicola Ferlotti, La Turca in Cimento (Florence 1792) by Luigi Dupen, Le Sultane (Turin 1792) by Domenico Le Fèvre, and Le Tre Sultane (1836) by Luigi Henry.
Coincidentally, Angiolini, Ferlotti, Dupen and Le Fèvre also all created Don Juan ballets, all of which used music by Gluck. Their premiere places and dates are as follows: Angiolini, Le Festin de Pierre (Vienna 1761); Dupen, Il Convitato di pietra (Milan 1788); Noverre (London 1794); Ferlotti, Il Convitato di pietra (Milan 1795); and Le Fèvre, Don Giovanni Tenorio ossia Il Convitato di pietra (Naples 1795).

 

15:00-15:15 Coffee Break

15:15-16:45 Session III  Generic Investigations

Chair: Şebnem Aksan (Istanbul)

 

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1. Dora Kiss Muetzenberg (Geneva) 

The “Turkish Dance”, an Emblem of belle danse

The “Turkish Dance”, a choreography by Antony Labbé (Anthony L’Abbé, 1666-1757) transcribed in Feuillet notation and published c1725 in A New Collection of Dances, presents characteristics of Orientalism. Indeed, it uses the standard of belle danse (beautiful dance) and includes contrasts typical of the European style of presumed Oriental elements. In my presentation, I wish to suggest that this pleasant and comical piece is certainly not really Turkish, but emblematic of a lively and non-academic belle danse.
The belle danse, a style developed in France at the end of the seventeenth century, establishes a language based on specific choreographic characteristics, which can be identified on the basis of dance scores and treatises. From the less significant elements of this language (basic movements such as pliés) to the more important ones (spatial tracings), the “Turkish dance” respects some, but not all of the belle danse conventions. I wish to present some of the conventions that are respected, as well as those which are transgressed. My goal is to study the effect produced by these ‘transgressions’. Further, because the belle danse is grounded on a well-defined relationship to music, and since some untypical aspects appear in the musical score, I will also show how the musical characteristics of the “Turkish Dance” are articulated to the choreographic part.
Even if Labbé’s “Turkish Dance” is part of the belle danse tradition, not all determinant choreographic elements were liable to be taken into account in its notated score, as this dance exceeds the norms of the belle danse. Indeed, the “Turkish Dance” belongs to a certain part of the belle danse that is less academic than what pertains to an originary choreographic language (in terms of repetition, variation and contrast). By way of consequence, our knowledge of it is necessarily partial. However, it increases our understanding of the belle danse, as it toys with transgression and plays on the relationship between difference and sameness to induce surprise, elation and a sense of fascination. This is what I hope to show in a danced version of a female solo part of the “Turkish Dance” which I propose to offer (in video projection or live), making room for my interpretation of the score.

 

2. Deniz Polat (Istanbul)  

A Historical Approach to Turning Movements In Comparison to Genres of Sema and Ballet

Turning movements are found in many cultures, and almost all children love to whirl until they lose control, fall and laugh. The turning experience is one of the most exciting movements that our bodies can achieve; it unites us with the cosmic realm but also needs to work against gravity, against natural forces on us, demanding a challenge against nature.
This presentation aims to compare two different styles of turning movement, taken from ballet and from the sema (the ritual of whirling dervishes) in terms of the physics of dance. Examining their solutions and choices through the physics of dance opens up a new dimension to cultural understanding. The topic concerned is the body; all humans despite colour and shape differences share the same anatomic features. What are so diverse are the solutions created in relation to nature, their surroundings and each other. This results in the wonderful, but most of the time problematic issues of culture, identity, ethnicity, and self-perception and presentation. Briefly, how the body is decorated and moved is what creates our differences, and as social beings we decide or have decided for us to which community we belong. At this point I truly admire the wizard of movement, Rudolf Laban as he describes that “[s]tudies of movement behavior in ethnic, cultural contexts can no longer be regarded simply as studies of ‘foreign’ behavior, but rather as explorations of wide range of possibilities of our own ‘human’ behavior. What makes ethnicity ‘foreign’ to many is not just departures from what is familiar, but a lack of awareness of the components even of the ‘familiar.’ That ignorance obscures the common threads between the familiar and the foreign” (Bartenieff 167).
Movement and dance studies play an important role in neurosciences, thus shedding light on the understanding of how our brains function when we move, or just observe others moving, and on how we attune ourselves with our social environment. For comparison, first the physics of dance is used to analyze the movements and a historical approach is applied to both turning movements; and secondly, the dance iconography methods of Tillman Seebass are used to analyze, and the results are gathered in Susan Leigh Foster’s table to show differences and similarities between the examples.

 

19:30-20:30 Lecture-Recital: "European Music in the Ottoman Empire"

Dr. Evren Kutlay Baydar (Istanbul) (Presentation and piano)

 

21:00 Dinner

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FRIDAY, JUNE 10TH, 2011

10:00-12:15 Session IV A Traveller Composer and a Composer Sultan or, Solitude at Home and On the Road

Chair: Michael Hüttler (Vienna)

1. Käthe Springer-Dissmann (Vienna)  

Gluck, the Wanderer: Travels of a European Composer

At the dawning of the age of modern transport systems, when the mobility of artists was at least no less international than it is today, Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) was a travelling composer par excellence. Like Mozart (even more so) he spent most of his life on the road from childhood on, and even after finally settling down the second time in Vienna at the age of sixty-five, he still planned further journeys, though he was by then too weak to carry them out.
In this lecture I will present Gluck’s life and career as determined by his restless tours through Europe in the pre-revolutionary era of the Enlightenment – from Bohemia to Italy; from London to Hamburg, Dresden, Copenhagen, Prague, and Naples; and several times between Vienna to Paris – and point out how the composer’s vagabond existence shaped his ideas and rightly earned him the reputation of being a cosmopolitan artist.
With Gluck’s music for the reformist ballet pantomime Don Juan ou Le festin de pierre in mind – choreographed by Gasparo Angiolini and staged in Vienna in 1761, precisely 250 years ago – we will at first explore the composer’s itinerary as it criss-crosses the paths of the stage figure Don Juan, whose story was spread out across Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries mainly by touring companies.
Gluck himself was – with interruptions – a member of various travelling opera troupes between 1746 and 1752. As I will show in the second part of my presentation he worked first with the brothers Pietro and Angelo Mingotti and then with Giovanni Battista Locatelli, who belonged to the artistically most significant Italian touring opera companies of the time.
Interestingly, many stages of Gluck’s life persist in the dark of anonymity, among them tantalizingly his years with itinerating opera troupes, which are primarily documented by the dates of his premieres and a few records by contemporaries. Perhaps that is why they seem to be less well known. Nonetheless, this period – that corresponds so strongly with Gluck’s prevailing call for freedom – marks a milestone on his rise to becoming the outstanding European phenomenon that is briefly sketched out in the conclusion of this lecture.

 

2. Sibylle Dahms (Salzburg) 

The New Edition of Gluck's and Angiolini's Don Juan in the Gluck-Gesamtausgabe (II/2)

Just in time for the 250th anniversary of Christoph W. Gluck’s and Gasparo Angiolini’s Don Juan ou le Festin de Pierre (1761), the original version of this epoch-making pantomime ballet has been published in the Gluck Gesamtausgabe (GGA =Complete edition of Gluck’s works) and will be introduced to the audience. As the editor of this volume I shall give some explanations concerning the difference between the first edition of this ballet, edited by Richard Engländer in GGA II/1 in 1966, and the new edition that presents the so-called Kurzfassung which seems to be the original version. For this purpose those musical sources on which this new edition is based and which distinguish it from the former edition, as well as some notable contemporary records concerning the reception of this work, will be discussed

 

3. Emre Araci (London/Istanbul) 

A Life for the Sultan: Murad V and the Creation of a Psychological Ballet

Emre Araci gives insight into the artistic context and creative process of his new two-act ballet based on the life of the Ottoman Sultan Murad V (1840-1904), who was deposed in 1876 after a three-month reign on the grounds of insanity and remained under strict house arrest in the Palace of Ç?rag(an, where for the remaining twenty-eight years of his life he composed short salon pieces in the genres of polkas, quadrilles, waltzes and marches. A misunderstood and lonely existence of a deposed monarch serves as the ingredients of the solitary artist’s search for beauty and meaning in an alien life towards self-acceptance and tolerance in this psychological ballet, constructed from original scores of the period with acute sensitivity to the past, as a means to reach the lost elegance of the future.

 

12:30 Lunch

 

21:00 Closing Event: “An Ambassador’s Opera”

W. A. Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne in the Gardens of Palais Yeniköy (by invitation)

 

  

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BIOGRAPHIES

Emre Aracı

Composer, conductor and music historian, whose research interests cover the Euro-Ottoman musical exchange and the history of European musical traditions in modern day Turkey. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh and for some time Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, Dr. Aracı is the author of two biographies, one of Ahmed Adnan Saygun (1999), Turkey’s most prominent twentieth-century composer of contemporary music, and the other about Donizetti Pasha (2006), brother of the celebrated opera composer and master of music to Sultan Mahmud II and Sultan Abdulmecid. Emre Aracı also recorded several albums covering the music of this era: European Music at the Ottoman Court, War and Peace: Crimea 1853-56, Bosphorus by Moonlight and Istanbul to London, the first two of which were later released internationally by Warner Classics under the title of Invitation to the Seraglio, and the last two were released most recently by Brilliant Classics entitled Euro Ottomania. Based in the United Kingdom, he regularly lectures, performs, and broadcasts under the patronage of the Çarmıklı family / Nurol Holding Inc. [back]

Bruce Alan Brown

Bruce Alan Brown Bruce Alan Brown, Professor of Musicology at the University of Southern California, specializes in later eighteenth-century opera, ballet, and performance practice. His publications include Gluck and the French Theatre in Vienna (1991), critical editions of Gluck’s Le Diable à quatre and L’Arbre enchanté (1992 and 2009), W. A. Mozart: Così fan tutte (1995), The Grotesque Dancer on the Eighteenth-Century Stage (ed., with Rebecca Harris-Warrick; 2005), and numerous articles. From 2005 to 2007 he was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Musicological Society. He is a member of the editorial board of the Gluck-Gesamtausgabe (Mainz) and of the Akademie für Mozart-Forschung (Salzburg). [back]

David Chataignier

David Chataignier is a doctoral student at the Université Paris - Sorbonne (Paris IV). He is currently writing a Ph.D. dissertation on tragedies with Turkish subjects on the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century French stage under the direction of Georges Forestier. His first online publication was “Représentation de la tyrannie dans les tragédies à sujet turc” on the Centre de Recherche sur l’Histoire du Théâtre web site in 2007 after the student conference “Théâtre et politique” in 2005. In 2008 David contributed to Fortune and Fatality: Performing the Tragic in Early Modern France (Desmond Hosford and Charles Wrightington, eds.) with a study of a recurrent dramatis persona of his corpus entitled “Roxelane on the French Tragic Stage: 1561–1681”. Two more articles are forthcoming in 2010: “Le sujet turc sur la scène française des XVIe–XVIIe siècles: un voyage dans le tragique, du récit d’Orient à la tragédie” (Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne) and “Le Sujet turc sur la scène des collèges du XVII^e siècle français: essai de définition” (Presses Universitaires de Rouen). The first is the result of the meeting “Théâtre et Voyage II” co-organized by the Sorbonne and the Université d’Aix en Provence in Londonderry, Northern Ireland (Campus of Magee) in 2006; the second comes from a presentation made in a colloquium at the Université de Rouen in the context of the “Saison de la Turquie en France” event.
From 2006 to 2010, David was a member of the ANR Project Molière 21 (directed by Georges Forestier and Claude Bourqui), the goal of which was to establish a double edition of Molière’s work: a print version, published by Gallimard and the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, and an Internet Database on the Sorbonne Academic Web Sites. [back]

 

Sibylle Dahms

Sibylle Dahms has been professor at the Institute of Musicology of the University of Salzburg, where she also was curator of the significant dance collection Derra de Moroda Dance Archives. She was guest professor at the Universities of Munich, Bern, Graz and Innsbruck. She has published scholarly books and numerous articles mainly concerning dance and musical theatre, was a member of the editing staff of the encyclopedia Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart and directed three FWF Projects.
She also founded an ensemble for historical dance and musical performance practice and participated in projects of practical reconstraction of ballets from the eighteenth century in Vienna, Berlin, Stuttgart and Salzburg (Festspiele).
Since 2010 she has been director of the Gluck-Forschungsstelle at the University of Salzburg. [back]

 

Selçuk Göldere

Ass.Prof.Dr. Selçuk Göldere was born in 1971 in Ankara, and holds B.A. (1992-1996), M.A. (1996-1998), and PhD (1998-2005) degrees from the Theatre Department (Acting) of Ankara University; also holds a graduation (1992-1998) from the ULUSOY Private Ballet School.
Between 1999-2002 Göldere studied at and graduated with a licence degree from Amsterdam Theatreschool Dance Department, SNDO School for the New Dance Development, Dance/Dance Making. Worked with Katie Duck, David Zambrano, Daniela Graça, Kurt Koegel, Peter Stein, Scoot de La Hunta, Eileen Standley, Sarah Wookey, and Jereoen Fabious.
Between 1999-2002 he worked at Amsterdam Theatreschool-TintLab, Amsterdam Thetareschool, International Regie Laboratories (Guernica). In 1994 Göldere received a scholarship in Poland, Wroclaw, at Jerzy Grotowski’s Research Center where he worked with Marek Oleksy from Tomashevski Mime Theatre (Body Plasticty). He also received in 1999 a scholarship from Amsterdam-Maastricht University, where he worked on the project “Make Them Laugh” with Jos Liebe.
He worked as Guest Choreographer in 1999-2002, and with the Holland- Amsterdam LEF Project in 2001. Between 1992-2011 he taught Dance and Movement Class, Acting and Directing Class, Choreographies, Regies and Stage Designs, Costume Designs at the following institutions: Turkish State Theatre, İzmit Municipality Theatre, Ankara University Theatre Department, Ankara Experimental Stage, Anadolu University State Conservatory, Ankara University State Conservatory, Ankara State Opera and Ballet Modern Dance Department, Hacettepe University State Conservatory Ballet Department, State Folk Dance Ensemble, and Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University Theatre Department.
Dance projects include: 2001, tint-lab, 2002, Medea (solo dance), 2003, Vinivuk (choreographed piece), 2005, Stravinsky, Le Scare du Printemps-I (dance duo), 2006, Üçsekiz (choreographed piece), 2007, Excentric (work in collabration) METU, International Contemporary Dance Festival, 2001-2009-Dancer, State Opera House in Ankara, Modern Dance Department
Academic Posts: 2009-2010 Ass. Prof. Dr .in Çanakkale, Onsekiz Mart Uni.Theatre Department, 2010-today Ass. Prof. Dr. in Ankara University State Conservatory Selected Choreographies: Peer Gynt (Ankara Uni. Theatre Dept.), Yerma (Ankara Experimental Stage), Cumhuriyet’e Selam (Ankara Uni. Theatre Dept.) Sanat Kurumu Jury Private Prix, Antigone (Ankara Uni. Theatre Dept.), Cadı Kazanı (Ankara Uni. Theatre Dept.), Memiş Dayı (Ankara Exp. Stage), Şahmeran (Diyarbakır State Theatre), Misafir-II (İzmit Municipal Theatre), Ceren (Private Ballet School, Olga), Don Perlimplin ile Belisa’nın Bahçede Sevişmesi (Ankara Uni. Theatre Dept.)  [back]

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Vera Grund

Vera Grund was born in Munich. She studied at Universität Mozarteum Salzburg where she received her PhD in 2009. From 2007 to 2009 she was employed at Digitale Mozart-Edition of Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum. Since 2009 she has been a member of Gluck-Gesamtausgabe at Universität Salzburg. [back]

 

Bert Gstettner

Bert Gstettner is born 1961 in Vienna. He has studied modern-, contemporary-, butoh- and ethnic-dance as well as martial arts in Vienna, Paris and New York, most importantly with Erick Hawkins, Alvin Nikolais and Murray Louis in New York. He was a long term voice student of Edwin Szamosi (Libero Canto) in Vienna. As a dancer Bert Gstettner collaborated in the 1980´s with many companies in Vienna and New York (Sin Cha Hong /LaMama Theatre, Gloria McLean&Dancers).
Bert Gstettner has been choreographing since 1987 and in 1992 he founded his own dance company TANZ*HOTEL. His dance-pieces have toured to Brazil, Mexico, India, Russia, Egypt, USA and many countries in Europe. He dances, teaches and choreographs for his company as well as in the past for Vienna Festival, Vienna Statesopera, Steirischer Herbst, Klangwolke Linz, Vienna Museumsquartier, Schauspielhaus Graz and Mozart Festival. Bert Gstettner is the initiator of the Austrian choreographers symposia TANZ*RAUM. Currently he is coaching and presenting young dance- and choreography artists in Vienna. More information: www.tanzhotel.at [back]

 

Bent Holm

Born in 1946; M.A., Dr.phil.; Associate Professor, Theatre Studies, Institute for Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen. Bent Holm has conducted research travels to Italy, France and India, and is a dramaturge and translator of plays, especially those by Dario Fo, De Filippo and Goldoni. His doctoral dissertation was on Comédie Italienne in a broad cultural, religious, and iconographic context, and he has published interdisciplinary studies on historical and dramaturgical issues in English, French, Polish and Italian. At the moment, Bent Holm is preparing the English version of his book about the eighteenth-century playwright Ludvig Holberg viewed from a dramaturgical-historical perspective. Special research focuses include the relationship between visual arts and theatre; drama analysis and creative theatre production; and theatricality and rituality. He is a lecturer at several international universities and research centres, most recently in Torino, Paris, Frankfurt and Stockholm. Holm is also a member of scientific committees and networks in Paris, Mantova and Torino, among other cities.
Recent publications include “Il Corvo canta. Una lettura dell’adattamento lirico di Hans Christian Andersen del Corvo di Gozzi”, in: A. Fabiani, ed., Carlo Gozzi entre dramaturgie de l’auteur et dramaturgie de l’acteur; un Carrefour artistique européen, Longo: Ravenna 2007; “Enlightened Nordic Knights: Text, Body and Space in Jens Baggesen and F.L.Ae. Kunzen’s Opera ‘Holger Danske,’ 1789”, in: North-West Passage 5, Torino, 2008); and scholarship on ritual and theatre, and non-western theatre (co-ed., contributor, Religion, Ritual, Theatre, Peter Lang: Frankfurt-New York, 2008). [back]

 

Dora Kiss Muetzenberg

PhD, Unity of Musicology, University of Geneva. Dora Kiss is a dancer who performs, teaches, and works as a choreographer in Switzerland, France, Germany and Austria. She is currently doing research in musicology, working on a PhD thesis under the supervision of Etienne Darbellay and Guillemette Bolens. Her research is focused on the writing and reading of the belle danse, for which she takes into account dance scores and treatises, musical scores, paintings and literary texts. She took part in the following symposia: Le corps dans l’histoire et les histoires du corps, University of Montreal (March 2009); World Knowledge Dialogue: Interdisciplinarity in Action: A Practical Experience of Interdisciplinary Research, Universities of Geneva, Lausanne and Neuchâtel (October 2010). [back]

 

Evren Kutlay Baydar

Dr. Evren Kutlay-Baydar graduated from German teaching Cagaloglu Anatolian High school and from Bogazici University Mathematics Department while studying at Istanbul University State Conservatory Piano Department from 1985-1997. In 1999, she was invited to study with full scholarship at University of West Georgia, where she received her MBA and her MM in Piano Performance degrees with high honor and worked as a GRA both in Business and Music departments as well as for the University President’s Business class offered to honors students. During her studies in US, she was awarded the Beta Gamma Sigma International Business Scholars Award for her successful Business studies. In 2001, she received the Award of Excellence at GMTA (Georgia Music Teachers Association) piano competition, and in 2002, the Star of the Year award from MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) as the only foreigner and was invited to become a member of MTNA. During her studies and afterwards, she performed solo, four hand piano music as well as chamber music in Turkey at venues such as Istanbul University, Bogazici University, Koc University, Kocaeli University, Istanbul and Ankara Austrian Consulate Cultural Office, Turkish-American Universities Society, Kadikoy Public Education Center, and at Afyon International Classical Music Festival, and in US. She was invited to conferences in the US to present papers as well as to be a jury member at the WPPC International Piano Competition. In 2007, she completed her Ph.D. in Musicology at Istanbul University Social Sciences Institute. Since 2003, she has been teaching at Koc University. From 2003 to 2009 she worked as the Art Director of Sevgi Gönül Auditorium, which is the Performing Arts Center of Koc University.
In addition to her regular solo and chamber music concerts, she continues her research activities in the area of Western music during the Ottoman era. Some of the articles she has published in nationally and internationally judged academic journals include “Western Side of Eastern Woman: 19. Century Ottoman Woman and European Music”, “Vive La Liberte! Musical Celebration of II. Constitution”, “Two Italian Musicians at Ottoman Courts: G. Donizetti and C. Guatelli”, and “European Musicians who performed at Ottoman Courts and their Contribution to the Development of Western Music in Ottoman Empire”. She gave a seminar series at the Suna and Inan Kirac Foundation Istanbul Research Institute and a lecture-recital series, in which she performed the repertoire of the period on piano, at Istanbul Technical University MIAM (Music Advanced Research Center) under the main title of “Western Music Adventure of Ottomans”. Moreover, she gave explanatory piano recitals under the theme of “European Music from the Composer Sultans of Ottomans” and “European Music in 19. Century Istanbul” at Koc and other institutions.
Evren Kutlay-Baydar continues her research and concerts in the same area. She has a book titled European Musicians of Ottomans that was published by Kapi yayinlari in 2010 and a CD recording titled European Music in Ottoman Istanbul released in 2011 by Anatolian Productions. [back]

 

Haluk Öyküm Lumalı

Born in 1982 in Ankara, Haluk Öyküm Lumalı graduated from the Department of Modern Dance State Conservatory Ankara University in 2009. Being still a second term student of the same university, the Institution of Educational Sciences Department of Education’s Cultural Essentials, he has lectured on the Traditional Dances Course in the Modern Dance department since 2009.
He started his professional career in the Turkish Radio Television Institution Child and Youth Folk Dances Group. Between 2000-2006 he worked as the instructor and the choreographer of the same group. He has worked as instructor and choreographer of folk dances in many amateur university student groups and professional institutions. In 2007 he founded the ADA student group, with which he arranges an organization every year. Since 2009 he has been the art director of Gazi University Faculty of Engineering Folklore and Performing Arts Group, with which he carries on the work of a culture and art journal called Hasat Zamanı. He has participated in several national and international festivals as dancer, instructor and choreographer, and has won major and second prizes in Turkey and in the world.
Publications: “Türk Halk Danslarında Modernleşme Çabaları” (3 Bölüm – Article) (‘Efforts of Modernization in Turkish Folk Dances’), in: ODTÜ THBT ( Türk Halk Bilimi Topluluğu) Halk Bilimi Dergisi, July 2002; “Biz Doğru Doğuyu Bulduk” (‘We Have Found the True East’), Sahne Dergisi January - February 2008; “İki Aşığın Hazin Ayrılık Hikayesi” (‘The Sorrowful Separation Story of Two Lovers’), in: Sempatik Dans Dergisi, April – May 2008; “Türk Halk Danslarında Modernleşme Çabaları” (‘Efforts of Modernization in Turkish Folk Dances’), in: Çankaya Belediyesi HOY-TUR Halk Oyunları Gençlik ve Spor Kulübü Resmi İnternet Sitesi, February 2008; “Değişim’in Özü, Öz’ün Değişimi – Halk Danslarımızın Değişimi Üzerine Sofistçe Bir Düşünme-1” (‘The Change of Essence and the Essence of Change – Thinking on The Change of Our Folk Dance Sophistically – 1’), in Sahne Dergisi, November - December 2010 [back]

 

Michael Malkiewicz

Dr. Malkiewicz was born in 1967 in Salzburg. Violin studies at the University Mozarteum; music, theology and Slavic Studies at the University of Salzburg. 1996/97 Rome scholarship. Co-worker and project manager on various topics such as castrati, music of the Ballet en action and the relationship between music and dance. Lecturer at numerous universities about music and dance issues in theory and practice. Organization and implementation of interdisciplinary and intercultural projects. 2009 Willson Center Visiting Artist at the University of Georgia (USA); 2010 Study Abroad Programin Austria and Italy with the Nazareth College in Rochester (NY). Scientific publications on Mozart, string music, castrati and dance analysis of the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries. Since 2010 research assistant at the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts about continuities and discontinuities in the musical life of the postwar period. [back]

Laura Naudeix

Laura Naudeix teaches at the Université Catholique de l’Ouest of Angers (France) in French literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the performing arts. She has published works on French opera (Dramaturgie de la tragédie en musique 1673-1764, Champion, 2004), theatre with music (ed. with Anne Piéjus, Les Amants magnifiques, Psyché et La Comtesse d’Escarbagnas, in Œuvres  complètes, Molière, Georges Forestier and Claude Bourqui dir., Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 2010), history of dance (ed. with Jean-Noël Laurenti et Nathalie Lecomte, La Danse ancienne et moderne ou Traité historique de la danse, Louis de Cahusac [1754], Desjonquères-Centre National de la Danse, 2004), and the relations beetwen theatre, performance, text and music (ed. with Anne-Madeleine Goulet, La Fabrique des paroles de musique à l’âge classique, Wavre, Mardaga-Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, 2010). [back]

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Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller

Born in Vienna, Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller studied History of Theatre and History of Art, and classical ballet und Ausdruckstanz (Chladek-system). After studies in London and Paris she wrote her dissertation on Bronislawa Nijinska. She started teaching dance history at the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Vienna and at the Conservatoire Vienna. At that time, together with Alfred Oberzaucher, she edited the dance journal Tanzblätter. 1982-2002 she was a member of the Forschungsinstitut für Musiktheater der Universität Bayreuth, where she taught at the Bayreuth University and was in charge of the ballet section of Pipers Enzyklopädie des Musiktheaters. After visiting Russia and USA she was responsible for the research of the early works of George Balanchine. Specializing in stage dance of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, she edited the books Ausdruckstanz, Meyerbeer und der Tanz, Meyerbeer-Wagner. Eine Begegnung, Meyerbeers Bühne im Gefüge der Künste, Rosalia Chladek. Klassikerin des bewegten Ausdrucks (together with Ingrid Giel), and the reprint of Schrifttanz (together with Tanzarchiv Leipzig); she wrote numerous articles, and also entries in encyclopedias, e.g. for Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon, Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Musica in Scena, International Encyclopedia of Dance und Dictionnaire de la Danse/Larousse. In 2003-2009 she was curator of Derra de Moroda Dance Archives at the University Salzburg. Her latest publications are Prima la Danza! Festschrift für Sibylle Dahms, Souvenirs de Taglioni (2 vols.), and Mundart der Wiener Moderne. Der Tanz der Grete Wiesenthal. [back]

Deniz Polat

Kısmet Deniz Polat is a dance researcher and a member of Movement Atelier. Between the years 2000-2007 she undertook intensive studies on movement with the Contemporary Turkish Dance Research Laboratory. She gives workshops on “body consciousness and creativity” and has organized an interdisciplinary project, "From Learning to Creating: <...my Istanbul...>" (2003 - 2006). She holds an M.A. degree in Ethnomusicology (2006-2008) and is currently a doctoral student in Ethnomusicology at the Center for Advanced Studies in Music (MIAM), Istanbul Technical University (2008 to the present). [back]

Strother Purdy

Retired professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA, American University of Beirut, Marquette University, Milwaukee, USA.; author of Henry James: the Hole in the Fabric and articles on literary history and lit-film. [back]

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Käthe Springer-Dissmann

Dr. Käthe Springer-Dissmann was born in 1948 in Vienna. Studied pedagogy, psychology, and philosophy at the University of Vienna. Works as author and editor in the fields of education, psychology, and cultural history. Became chief editor of Redaktion Tagbau in Vienna in 1999, a department of Hollitzer Baustoffwerke Graz GmbH for the production of books on cultural and economic history. Specialized in the research field “History of post, media and travelling”, particularly with regard to the mobility of musicians and writers during the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, a project associated with the Don Juan Archive Vienna. In this context she has contributed, among other studies, presentations at symposia of the Don Juan Archive Vienna on Mozart, Haydn, and Lord Byron: “Mozart goes to Constantinople! The real conditions of a fictitious journey” (Vienna 2008); “Did Mozart drive a ‘Haydn’?: Cartwrights, carriages and the postal-system in the Austrian-Hungarian border area up to the eighteenth century” (Vienna 2009); “‘Now at length we’re off for Turkey, Lord knows when we shall come back!’: Byron’s Grand Tour to the Bosporus 1809-1811” (Vienna 2010). [back]

Stefanie Steiner

Dr. Stefanie Steiner studied musicology, German literature and philosophy at Regensburg University and Scuola di Paleografia e Filologia Musicale Cremona (M.A., 1994). Graduated from TU Dresden in 2000 with a Dr. phil. degree in musicology. Since May 2001 she has been a postdoctoral research fellow at Max-Reger-Institute, Karlsruhe. Teaching assignments include TU Dresden, University of Music Karlsruhe, and Zürich University.
Publications include: Stefanie Steiner, Zwischen Kirche, Bühne und Konzertsaal. Vokalmusik von Haydns “Schöpfung” bis zu Beethovens “Neunter”. Kassel, Basel, London, New York and Prague 2001; In Mohrenland gefangen… – Bilder des Orients und Aspekte der Aufklärung in Mozarts Opern, in: Mozart und die europäische Spätaufklärung, ed. Lothar Kreimendahl, Stuttgart/Bad Cannstatt 2010, p. 83–108; George Sand und Chopin – eine romantische Beziehung?, in: Chopin, der Antistar, ed. Ute Jung-Kaiser et al., Hildesheim 2010, p. 67–80; Zum Kompositions- und Rezeptionsprozess von Max Regers Symphonischem Prolog zu einer Tragödie op. 108, in: Musikstadt Leipzig. Bericht von der Internationalen Reger-Tagung Leipzig 2008, ed. Susanne Popp et al., Stuttgart 2010, p. 97–122. [back]

 

Dirk Van Waelderen

Dirk Van Waelderen is employed at the Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel as departmental coordinator for the exchange programmes of the Academic Education division. At the University of Leuven he is working on his Phd research in Early Modern History on the portrayal of the Ottoman Turks in the Spanish and Austrian Netherlands (and the relations between them). He previously graduated from the University of Leuven with a project on the topic of the Ottoman Turks and the siege of Vienna. During his studies at the latter university he also participated in an exchange at the Institut Orientalistique de l’Université Catholique de Louvain. [back]

 

Güzin Yamaner

Born in 1968, Doz. Güzin Yamaner received her undergraduate degree from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Theatre Department, Department of Stage Design. She wrote a graduate thesis in the Theatre Department about design problems of postmodern Handke theatre. She did her second graduate thesis in the Department of Women’s Studies about the contribution of feminist theatre to twentieth-century theatre. Her doctoral dissertation is in Education of Fine Arts with the theme Meaning Search in 20th Century Literature. Lectures about Feminism and Language / Literature, love / sexuality / violence and gender.
Academic fields of interest: children’s theatre, amateur theatre, feminist theatre, women`s theatre and creative drama. Studying oral history, auto / biography, interculturality and critical pedagogy. Publications: Postmodernizm ve Sanat, Ankara: Algı Yayınevi, 2006. Joris Ivens, Tehlikeli Yaşamak, (Translation - Hayal Et Kitaplığı, İstanbul) 2008; Akademide Feminist Sanat Üretmenin Bir Yıllık Hazin Çabası (Haziran 2009 – Haziran 2010) (‘A Year of Sorrowful Work Trying to Produce Art in the Academia June 2009 - June 2010’), in: Fe Dergi: Feminist Eleştiri, No. 2 Sayı 2, 2010, online: http://cins.ankara.edu.tr/pit.html
Play in English: East and West, in: The Open Page, Odin Teater - Holstebro, Denmark 2009. [back]

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CHAIRPERSONS

Filiz Ali

Filiz Ali, founder and director of the Ayvalık International Music Academy, was born in Istanbul. She studied piano at the State Conservatory of Ankara. Receiving a Fulbright scholarship to study in the USA, she attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and the Mannes College of Music in New York. She also holds the Advanced Musical Studies degree from London University, King's College, Department of Musicology. She worked as piano teacher and accompanist at the Ankara State Conservatory (1962-65), korrepetitor (singing coach) at the City Opera and State Opera of Istanbul (1965-72), and piano teacher and korrepetitor at Mimar Sinan University State Conservatory (1972-85). In 1987, after receiving her degree on musicology, she became Professor of Musicology at the Musicology Department of Mimar Sinan University State Conservatory. She was the Head of Musicology Department of Mimar Sinan University from 1990 to 2005. Since 2006 she has been giving a course on the Master Works of Western Classical Music at Sabanci University.
Filiz Ali was the music program producer for the Turkish Radio Television Corporation from 1962 to 1985 and for BBC Turkish section in London from 1985 to 1986. She has been the regular music criticcof major daily newspapers such as Cumhuriyet, Hurriyet, Yeni Yuzyıl, Radikal and Milliyet and monthly magazines such as Esquire, Marie-Claire, Vizyon, YK Kitaplık, and Müzikoloji Dergisi (‘Musicology Journal’). She was the Artistic Director of the Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall in Istanbul from 1989 to 1993 and is still the Musical Advisor of the International Eskisehir Festival. She is one of the founders of the Balkan Music Forum and was Turkey's representative at UNESCOs 30th General Assembly of the International Music Council at Montevideo, Uruguay, in October 2003. She is the Turkish delegate of the European Music Council. Prof. Ali has eight published books to date. In 1995 she has received the title of Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the Ministry of Culture and Francophony of the Republic of France. [back]

 

Bernd Roger Bienert

As curator, choreographer, director and set designer, Bernd Roger Bienert’s professional activities are interdisciplinary, encompassing dance, visual arts, stage direction, text and architecture. Bienert began his career as a dancer at the Vienna State Opera under Gerhard Brunner and at the Nederlands Dans Theater in The Hague under Jirí Kylián. As a dancer he worked with numerous renowned choreographers such as Christopher Bruce, Nacho Duato, William Forsythe, Hans van Manen, Jirí Kylián, Rudolf Nureyev and Jochen Ulrich.
In 1991 Bienert became the ballet director and chief choreographer at the Zurich Opera House, a position he held until 1996. His new interpretations of classics, such as Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker (in cooperation with Keso Dekker and Mario Botta), caused a sensation. Also noteworthy were Bienert’s many premieres choreographed to compositions by Luciano Berio and other contemporary composers, and those developed in cooperation with the Nobel prize winning author Elfriede Jelinek, who wrote numerous texts for Bienert. In collaboration with artists such as Hans Werner Henze, Götz Friedrich, Alfred Kirchner, Claudio Abbado, Mario Botta, Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel and Zaha Hadid, to name but a few, works were created for the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, the Munich Biennale, the Ars Electronica Festival, the Deutsche Opera on the Rhein, the Basel Theatre, the Deutsche Opera Berlin and the Zurich Opera House.
Bienert’s interest in the reconstruction of significant lost choreographies, such as those from Nijinsky, Börlin, Fokine and Saint-Léon, was a special theme of his direction in Zurich and Saarbrücken, alongside ground-breaking works with greats in literature, music, architecture, film and performance. Especially memorable were productions such as Distance of the Moon (with Karlheinz Essl, Essl Museum), Alpenglühn (with Thomas Pernes, Vienna State Opera), Der Trojanische Friede (with Herbert Rosendorfer, the first Munich Biennale), Medea Fragment (with Hans Jürgen von Bose, Zurich Opera House), Der Tod und das Mädchen II (with Olga Neuwirth and Elfriede Jelinek, EXPO 2000) and Compass (with Luciano Berio and Renzo Piano, Zurich Opera House). Most recently Bienert has created dances on screen, carried out research on baroque theater and been active internationally as curator, lecturer and university lector (at the Institute for Theater Studies, University of Vienna and the Bruckner Private University in Linz). For the Vienna City Festwochen in the summer of 2009, Bienert initiated and curated a literary project for which Austrian authors Olga Flor, Eva Menasse and Franzobel contributed texts on the subject “city centre, the centre of Vienna” – texts that were displayed on giant LED walls for several weeks throughout Vienna’s first district. An interdisciplinary concept several years in the making, Bienert’s most recent projects Signings and The Puzzled Wife examine the transformation of text into sign language within a larger choreographic context. In 2010 several stages of his new works with sign language and dance were premiered in the US; they inspired the creation of the Festival Dances in Silence in Washington, D.C. Bienert’s first theatre text Alzburg: Eutopa was premiered in a dance production of his own choreography, performed in Vienna’s Semperdepot by Albert Rueprecht and the dance company homunculus. [back]

 
Helga Dostal

Dr.phil., born in Vienna. Studied dramatics, musicology, philosophy and psychology at Vienna University. Assistant producer for some fifty operas, plays and concerts broadcast by the ORF. Co-organizer of major exhibitions in the Vienna Künstlerhaus, Museo teatrale alla Scala di Milano and for the Prague Quadriennale. Worked with Rudolf Nurejev at the Vienna State Opera, and was dramaturge for the Austrian Länderbühne and the Tribune Theatre. For ten years she was Head of the Art University Department in the Federal Ministry for Science and Research, then Director of the Austrian Theatre Museum. Currently she is President of the Advisory Board of the Arnold Schoenberg Centre, and President of the International Theatre Institute of the UNESCO, Centrum Österreich. Helga Dostal was awarded the Ring of Honour of the Salzburg Mozarteum University. [back]

 
Michael Hüttler

Dr.phil.; born in Tulln, Lower Austria. Michael Hüttler pursued theatre, film and media studies, as well as journalism and communication studies at Vienna University, having worked in a bank for several years prior to studying. He teaches at Vienna University in the Department of Theatre, Film and Media Studies, and lectured at Yeditepe University Istanbul (2001-2003). He has been conducting research for the Da Ponte Institute and the Don Juan Archiv Wien since 2001. Since 2007, he has been director of Don Juan Archiv Wien. Current research focuses on forms of music and popular theatre in the eighteenth century and the ‘turkish-oriental sujet’ in European theatre. He has published on Mozart, theatre ethnology, business theatre, and experimental theatre in Austria, including (ed. with Susanne Schwinghammer, Monika Wagner) Aufbruch zu neuen Welten: Theatralität an der Jahrtausendwende (Frankfurt/Main: IKO, 2000); (ed. with Susanne Schwinghammer, Monika Wagner) Theater. Begegnung. Integration? (Frankfurt/Main: IKO, 2003); Unternehmenstheater. Vom Theater der Unterdrückten zum Theater der Unternehmer? (Stuttgart: ibidem, 2005); (ed.) Hermann Nitsch. Wiener Vorlesungen (Wien: Böhlau, 2005); (ed.) Lorenzo Da Ponte (Wien: Böhlau, 2007), (ed. with Ulf Birbaumer, Guido Di Palma) Corps du Théâtre / Il Corpo dell Teatro (Wien: Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, 2010) and: (ed. with H.E. Weidinger) Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, Vols. I-IV (forthcoming) [back]

 

Markus Köhbach

Prof. Dr. Markus Köhbach studied between 1968-1976 at the University of Vienna (Turkish, Arabian, Byzantine and Jewish Studies, Eastern European History), making repeated study trips to Turkey and in 1975 conducting library and archive research in Istanbul. In 1976 he received his Ph.D. degree in Turkish Studies from the University of Vienna. In the 1975-76 academic year he became an assistant at the Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Vienna; between the years 1976-1991 he worked as Assistant Professor at the same institute, where he received in 1991 tenure and rank of Associate Professor after his Habilitation. In the 1991-92 academic year he was visiting professor at the Department of Turkish Philology at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Since 1992 he has been Full-Professor, Chair of Turkish and Islamic Studies at the Department of Near Eastern Studies of the University of Vienna. He also held administrative positions at the University of Vienna; between 1993-1999 as Head of Department of Near Eastern Studies; between 2000-2004 as Vice Dean for Studies of the Faculty of Humanities; and between 2004-2008 as Director of Diploma Programmes, responsible for regular Diploma Programmes in African Studies, Ancient Semitic Studies and Oriental Archeology, Arabian Studies, Indology, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, Turkish Studies, and the individual International Development Diploma Programme. [back]

 

Nedret Kuran Burçoğlu

Comparatist and Translation Scholar Nedret Kuran-Burçoğlu is Professor at Yeditepe University, in Istanbul. She studied English Language and Literature, Modern Turkish Literature, German Literature and Culture and Translation Studies. Her publications focus on Translation Studies and Comparative Cultural Studies, comprising Comparative Literature, Imagology and other transnational, intercultural themes. Until 2000 she was teaching in Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. During the 2000-2001 academic year she was a visiting scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies of Harvard University, USA. Since 2001 she has been teaching in various programmes of the Faculty of Science and Arts of Yeditepe University. She has initiated the following research projects, in which experts from various disciplines have taken part: Multiculturalism: Identity and Otherness (1997), The Image of the Turk in Europe from the Declaration of the Republic in 1923 to 1990s (2000), Representations of the ‘Other/s’ in the Mediterranean World and Their Impact on the Region (2004), A New Mediterranean Policy in the Making: Towards a Multicultural Dialogue, Coherence and Accountability and Turks in Germany - Germans in Turkey in historical, literary and political context. The texts of the first three projects were published as anthologies. The projects were supported by The Council of Europe, European Cultural Foundation, UNESCO and the Press Council of the Prime Minister. Her PhD thesis the Reception of J.W. von Goethe in Turkey and an Analysis on Faust Translations (1984) and her Habilitation Translation as an Intercultural Communication Phenomenon on the Example of Turkish and English Translations of Ingeborg Bachmann’s The Thirtieth Year (1993) were published by Boğaziçi University Press. Her book the History of Printing in the Ottoman Empire that she translated from Franz Babinger (2004) was published by the Turkish History Foundation. Her book entitled Die Wandlungen des Türkenbildes in Europa (2005) was published by Spur Verlag, in Zürich. Kuran-Burçoğlu is the President of the Crossroads Interdisciplinary Research and Policy Platform that she founded together with thirteen other scholars of social sciences in Istanbul. [back]

Günsel Renda

Received her B.A. degree from Barnard College, Columbia University, an M.A. from Washington University, and her Ph.D. from Hacettepe University in Art History. She has worked at Hacettepe University and chaired the History of Art department for many years. She is presently teaching at Koç University in Istanbul. She has served as advisor to the Turkish Ministry of Culture and organized several international exhibitions. She was a Fulbright visiting scholar in USA and guest professor at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes à la Sorbonne in Paris. She has been a member of the governing board at IRCICA. She has lectured on Turkish art in the USA and several countries in Europe and Asia, and has participated in many international research projects. She is the author and co-author of books published in the United States, Europe and Turkey, and of many articles. Günsel Renda specializes in Ottoman art, Ottoman painting and interactions of European and Ottoman cultures.
Some of the books she has edited, co-edited and written are The Transformation of Culture: The Atatürk Legacy (ed. G. Renda, M. Kortepeter), Princeton 1986; A History of Turkish Painting (Grabar, Renda, Turani, Özsezgin) Genève-Istanbul 1988; Woman in Anatolia: 900 Years of the Anatolian Woman (ed. G. Renda) Istanbul 1994; The Sultan’s Portrait: Picturing the House of Osman (Neciboglu, Raby, Majer, Meyer-zur-Capellen, Bagcı, Mahir, Renda), Istanbul 2000; The Ottoman Civilization (ed. H. Inalcik, G. Renda), Istanbul 2002; Minnet av Konstantinople. Den osmansk-turkiska 1700-talssamlingen pa Biby (Achlund, Adahl, Brown, Karlsson, Kaberg, Laine, Renda), Stockholm 2003; Image of the Turks in the 17th Century Europe (Neumann, Stepanek, Yerasimos, Renda, Gardina, Grothaus, Vidmar), Istanbul 2005; and Osmanlı Resim Sanatı (Ottoman Painting) (Serpil Bagcı, Filiz Çagman, Günsel Renda, Zeren Tanındı). [back]

Hans Ernst Weidinger

Gewerke, Dr. phil.; born in 1949 in Vienna. Studied law, classical languages, theater studies and art history at Vienna University, and dance, voice and piano in Vienna and Prague; has conducted study trips to Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, Palermo, London and Prague; taught at Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa; Mozarteum University, Salzburg; and ISSEI, Pamplona. Founder of Don Juan Archiv Wien in 1987. Projects include Wiener Brut (film, Vienna 1982); Constitutionis Theresianae Revocatio (performance, Vienna 1982); La Prétendante Chante (performance, Berlin 1984); Il Giudizio di Don Giovanni (opera – librettist and director, Ratisbon 1986); HIC SAXA LOQVVNTVR (architectural competition, Pfaffenberg, Berlin. Vienna, and Venice, 1993-96); Eine Oper für Büropa (opera. librettist and director, Linz 1998); Fermata Greve Piazza (opera, librettist and director, Greve in Chianti, 2002). His Ph.D. was on IL DISSOLUTO PUNITO. Untersuchungen zur äußeren und inneren Enstehungsgeschichte von Lorenzo da Pontes & .A. Mozarts DON GIOVANNI. [back]

 

 

[Symposia]

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