“Women as an Inviting to Dance” In Traditional Turkish Weddings: Individual And Social Functions

When it is said wedding which brings individuals and communities together, socialize, giving them the opportunity to express themselves, developing their feelings of cooperating, solidarity and belonging, providing the transmission of value judgements to younger generations, entertainment is the first thing that comes to mind; when it comes to entertainment as well, it is dance that first comes to mind. Music, entertainment and dance are the parts of weddings which cannot be apart from weddings. Dances performed in weddings that blowing of steam, draining accumulated energies and discharging, especially women in traditional communities get the opportunities to be released from the stresses arising from communal norms even if partially. Women who are expected to be serious and sober without weddings and kept under the stress and control in the context of social norms are allowed to be released from these stress and control mechanisms within the obvious limits determined by the community as well even if partially. This paper points out the “women as an inviting to dance” also known as “attracting women” who persuade the guests to perform the dance in the ceremonies including the activities and events in the way of “henna night’’, “wedding - main wedding’’ and “veil’’ in traditional Turkish weddings which mostly women participate and conduct. In paticular before 1960s, at the weddings where women and men used to enjoy in the way they would not see each other and there was not still an orchestra, the introductory information will be given in terms of the identities, rolls and status of the women who conducted the musical programs during the ceremony cheering up the atmosphere, identify of women invited the guests to the dance, and they will refer to the individual and communal functions of the activities in question. By the determinations and reviews which will be done in the light of the datas obtained from verbal and written sources, they will try to give the answer in the context of constructions and functions to the question of what is the position of women at ceremonies in the city societies today, who in a sense used to organize entertainments in traditional communities.

Keywords

“women as an inviting to dance”, “attracting women’’, wedding, dance, tradition, change, transformat