Turkish Folk Dances Department

The Turkish Folk Dances Department that started education in 1989 under the guidance of Assist. Prof. Cengiz Aydın aims to train competent educators, scholars and artists who will transmit the traditional folk dances from one generation to the other through scientific methods.

The department has a young and dynamic academic staff of 17 who are each experts in their own fields. There are  two main programs as Turkish Folk Dances Training and Turkish Folk Dances Performance in the department. While Turkish Folk Dances the Training Program foucses on theoretical courses, there is a curriculum based on stage performances in Turkish Folk Dances Performance Program. In the department, there is a curricula of 4 years_ the first 2 years for undergraduate’s and the other 2 for graduate’s degrees. Next to being independent artists, the graduates can be employed as dancers in private companies, music and folk dances trainers in state school, private schools or public education centers, scholars at the universities or researchers at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

The documents and data obtained through the ethnographic field researches and folk dances collections which create the basis of education and staging works of the department are archived in the department and benefitted in during the educational activities.

ADMISSION CRITERTIA

Turkish Folk Dances Department accepts national and international candidates with a two-level aptitude test. The average student quota for each year is 30 people. The aptitude test consists of music perception, movement perception, individual presentation and collective presentation areas. The physical fitness of the candidates is also evaluated.

                                                                                                                        DEPARTMENT ADMINISTRATION 

Prof. Mehmet Öcal ÖZBİLGİN (PhD)                                                                   Prof. Sema ERKAN (PhD)                                                   Assoc. Prof. Füsun AŞKAR (PhD)

Head of Turkish Folk Dances Department                                                                                                                                           Head od Turkish Folk Dances Performance Program

                                                                                                              Head of Turkish Folk Dances Training Program

Assoc. Prof. Bora OKDAN (PhD)                                                                                                       

Co-head of Department