How did Somatic Dialogue Start?

Dear readers near and far,

After a very long summer break, here I am again sitting this Monday at 14:10 at my computer and it is the best time to start again. 

A lot has happened during the summer, and I have written a lot of pages in the book. Lately I haven’t been able to write much, and am burning with the longing to sit and let my fingers dance on the keyboard, catching the thoughts whirling in my mind. The book is advancing and I am happy. I am happy to know that you are reading and are witnessing my process. A big thanks flies to you right now from my heart to your eyes reading these lines today.

I am frequently asked about how I created this method called Somatic Dialogue. Each time, depending on the quality of the conversation in which this question reaches me, I have been trying to tell the story, each time a little different but over all the same: all stories once they are told have the power to create themselves. 

In very short, to spare you a lot of reading: This method developed itself during my teaching career as a contemporary dance teacher. I have only served all the ideas that came to me inspired by bodies in motion, and I have humbly worked hard to bring clarity into my transmission and creation of dance. 

If you are satisfied with this short story you may stop reading now and save a lot of time, and maybe you will try it out, because more than knowing about my story, it is far more exciting to explore your own story through Somatic Dialogue by simply practicing it.

In case you want to read on, here is a slightly longer version: it actually started, before even I knew it would be a method, during my transition from Paris to Prague, in 2004. I had already been feeling some inspiration of how to make people (young and adult) feel the beauty of dance and their own beauty while they are dancing. I spent some 4 months in Istanbul before completely moving to Prague from Paris, and my dear friend Deniz Polat had a group of artists (CATDAL) with whom she was working on researching and creating dance and dance related matters in Turkey. They were an amazing group: painters, sculptors, actors, dancers, musicians, curious amateurs and professionals of all possible ages. They were meeting regularly and working on art together. Deniz offered me to work with them for movement. It is with them that I tried out my experimental exercises of improvisation using tasks, images, restrictions and roles. We had a fantastic time. It was working. I could see liberations happening in them, creativity was coming out and joy was filling the space. This is really where it all started consciously for me, at this time I ignored the name Somatic Dialogue, however a version of Dialogue was there in my mind: Muhabbet.

If you still are curious and not bored you may continue reading, as this version is getting longer: Muhabbet ( a conversation where love flows), was something that moved me. I was dancing to feel Muhabbet in myself. My source for this motivation was when I dived into Turkish Classical and spiritual music in 1992. I was initiated to listen deeply to music and to converse in harmony with the music through my heart, primarily by one amazing musician, and then other masters followed, to whom I will remain grateful forever.

The listening fascinated me, and soon I was not only listening to music, improvisations (Taksim) of musicians, but also to words, voices and the sounds of the life surrounding me. The more I listened the more I was able to hear.

Are you still here? Well the story is longer: I then, after many years of teaching, performing and creating free-lance, started my first long-term teaching contract at the Duncan Centre Conservatory in Prague, where I had the opportunity for five years to provide the students with the experience that I thought is best for them. This was the director’s, Mrs Blažíčková’s wish. I served the best I could, and I was able to develop my tasks and my ideas with the students and it seemed that it worked very well. During this period I received the unique opportunity to co-create a performing arts department at Bilgi University Istanbul and in 2007 we opened with my colleagues the performing arts track. It was supposed to be a body based performing arts education for people who wanted to enter the world of performing arts. During these years this method developed itself more and more with the stunning dedication of all the students who were surrendering to it with love. 

Still not bored? The story goes on…

In 2016 I started transmitting this method to my dear friend and colleague Beliz Demircioğlu. I had the honour of creating a danced ritual for her and myself, which was the artistic outcome of a year and a half’s intense one on one Somatic Dialogue practice. It was also during the artist in residence project with the Performing Art Department at the university.  The setting was that she was dancing an intimate story and I was her witness. We called it Let Me Be. The piece premiered during the 10th anniversary of the Performing Arts Track. My dear friend Jan Komarek created the magical lights, Ezgi Akpinarli (one of our students) created the costume, and the whole ritual was danced to silence, with one 5 min track in the end. (Which I will share with you here :) the whole album actually, because it is beautiful!

The movement in the piece was created from all the improvisation tasks of SD. I was witnessing her and she was being supported through my presence, and she was allowing all of  her ‘selves’ to be: this is the basis of Somatic Dialogue.

https://music.apple.com/cz/album/vivaldi/1452149524 Nisi Dominus by Vivaldi, performed by Andreas Scholl, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra & Paul Dyer

The story continues…

In 2017 I had the possibility to open a studio, thanks to my husband who has always been supporting me on this path. We opened the studio and in the past 8 years I was able to dedicate myself entirely to this method and I have been serving and developing it. Every day I come here and meet the floor, meet myself, my movements, my colleague Güneš, with whom we work closely on the expansion of this method and the activities in the studio Limpid Works. I continue to serve the path as best as I can. Each encounter with my colleagues (yes we are a small but strong community of Somatic Dialogue Facilitators) clarifies the way, enriches the depth of the work and opens our hearts and minds. I’ll tell you in the coming weeks about these beautiful people.

After so many years of dancing, researching movement and being in deep listening, I continue to work, 

to improvise, 

to dance 

and move 

and feel 

and think. 

The path is long, and with each lesson, workshop and training I learn. It is a never ending dance, as long as I live.

And if this version is not long enough, and you want to know more, we would need to meet one day under an olive tree with a bottle of wine and get carried away in Muhabbet and talk and talk and dance.

Until then, have a good journey!