Conceit and a night at Kervansarai

So I think that I want to ingratiate myself amongst the far more informed than me liberal blogroll of Colorodoans. I still am not up enough on the state scene, but I do have opinions and am not hesitant to say them.


I never wrote up adventures in cheesey Istanbul belly dance nightclubs, the filled out version.

A night at Kervansarai, or, Bill Murray lives in an Istanbulu who speaks English with a Russian inflection:

Obviously a popular nightclub, as they have 2 cabarets running at once with the performers going from one to the other. We were downstairs in a dark, very 1970s feeling room - long tables on each side of the dance floor (which we discovered is raised for performances) with a few smaller ones in little raised areas on the edges, like ours). There was a band playing the best in elevator music as the groups filed in, furthering the time warp quality of the evening. Happily, the preset dinner includes free booze - cheap Turkish red wine (which I really grew to enjoy) helps make ANYTHING more entertaining. This evening of dance included 4 belly dancers and a few rounds of folk dance.

The first dancer (who is not the street walker we saw while grabbing taksis afterwards fellow tour group people - the one on the street had much shorter hair and an Adam's apple, but is far more realistic than most trannies and transvestites in the states) had good moves when she did dance. She had a penchant for posing at the heads of the long tables set up flush against the stage. Not much else that really stuck in my memory 4 months on except long bleach white hair and an average plum colored costume.

I forgot the order of who was second and who was third, but I do remember the dancers pretty well. Ercil was in the most exquisite white Bella costume, which we were able to place by the pallettes and a long morning spent examining them on other costumes the day before. Ercil however, seemed very pained to be there. This is the dancer about whom Lori surmised must have been called in last minute, totally depressed about breaking up with her boyfriend and really wanting to be at home, or at a girl's night out, anywhere but dancing for us. I remember thinking that she would be really good, if she had interest in what she was doing. Bad night, or her style? Stylish disinterest does seem to be the approach of many of the younger dancers over there. I quite liked Yildiz Ai, and red suits her quite well. Her arm work was really sharp, tight moves on the music - I liked them even tho they seemed a bit awkward, but I was in the minority. She didn't do the American placid smile or aloof/smug face, but had far more expresison (and variety of) than the dancers who preceeded her. I can't give details, but I did really enjoy her performance and she seemed to enjoy what she was doing.

In between these performances we had a selection of coed and same sex folk dancing which didn't really measure up to the folk show we had seen the night before. Only some of the dancers bothered to show up, so to speak. The best were the men's dances - we've all become big fans of the Black Sea fish dance - and the sword performers (not so much belly dance style balancing on the head but throwing them). I did manage to get myself pulled up to dance with some of the folk dancers during one round - the casualty of sitting in a seat next to the steps up to our table I guess. The fun part was the shock on the part of the dancers that I knew the steps they were doing.

Then it was time for Asena. I don't remember her whole story, but it involves intrigue with her former band leader, a gunshot wound to the leg and a triumphant return to the dance scene. And she is good. Far more subtle than the rest of the dancers, she communicates much more in the cut of her eyes than the average dancer does in a whole song's worth of moves and gestures. She has a far more sophisticated range of facial expressions, coy to interested disinterest to a variety of smiles, none of which were too obvious. This many months later I don't remember any specific moves of hers (tho I have her VCD to jog my memory). The overall impression was a less is more - her makeup, hair and costume were all toned down (but not simple) so that we were drawn to the quality of her dancing over her appearance. I will ask Eva how much footage she has of that night and perhaps we can post it somewhere so that it can speak for itself (plus we can show off our performances with Babazula that way).

After all of this, out comes the Bill Murray lounge singer cliche. Like a good host he circled the room, singing songs from each country for which he saw a flag. Finland stumped him - luckily he had 2 long tables of raucous folks to sing back at him, including Santa Claus on a last holiday break before his busy season gets underway (hope his beard grew out a bit more). He did cheat a bit for Costa Rica and Belize - used a generic Spanish song to get his bases covered. He did the variety of cliched covers - lounge singer style and only a few years dated with his most recent references before leaving those of us left to dance to a variety of songs on tape that could be best described as a wedding band's greatest hits - the ultimate collection.

And with a dash across nearly 10 lanes of traffic, in the rain, and a few glances exchanged with the daintiest she boy prostitutes I've seen since I was last in Bangkok (as I said earlier - some in the group were fooled, but we were several feet away) we bundled in to taksis (I so prefer Turkish spelling) for the roller coaster drive back to the Hali.

Next up, a night at the Orient House featuring Birgul Beray and the mad taksi dach across town to dance with Babazula at the Yaga Club.