Aylanma (Dance)
The aylanma (Iradi, "circling") is the circle dance of Iradi weddings (toi) and feasts. It is danced to the dool, a large two-headed drum beaten with a bent stick, and the surnai, a shawm.[1]
Form
The dancers form a ring that moves counter-clockwise in a pattern of three steps and a turn: on every fourth beat each dancer spins once and claps above the head. The dance starts slowly and quickens over ten to twenty minutes until the ring breaks up with a shout. In the highlands men and women dance in separate rings, the women with turning wrists and the embroidered köküröktük of their dresses to the fore, the men with stamping and crouching turns. In the valleys and in Talas the rings at weddings are mixed. The slow night form, kara aylanma ("the black aylanma"), takes its name from the kara jel healing rite.[1]
Today
The aylanma ends most rural weddings. Since the 2010s the Mor-Folk ensemble Eski Ün and other Talas musicians have played it at club nights over synthesizers and drum machines (see Dance in Irad).[2]
References
- ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2018). 'Roads, Refuge and Reputation: Honour Customs of the Iradi Clans.' Vol. 11, pp. 5–29.
- ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2020). 'Stage, Screen and Club: Performing Arts in the ISEZ.' Vol. 13, pp. 77–96.