Dervish Whirling

Sublime, sumptious and serene would be 's' words I'd use to describe the gracious, gentle dervishes.

Not that their gentleness prevented any displays of ardour in their movements; yet everything they did was controlled by a mellifluous calm, flowing from an acute concentration obvious on their faces.

The room in which I watched them was L shaped and a little small. Nor did I get a front row seat as I was too busy eating my spicy meze upstairs on the balcony, gazing over at Mevlana Rumi's mausoleum. Therefore my view was impeded. But this was all that was negative about a performance that also had the sometimes underrated distinction of not lasting too long.

The first section set the mood, introducing us to a folkish classical music, with small guitar, reed flute, kettledrums and some raw, heartfelt, melodious singing that at times sounded more like wailing. Evocation of subtle, curious presences established, six dervishes slowly walked across the floor. After bowing to a candle that in the past would have been a Sheikh or other religious authority and kneeling to kiss the floor, they sat down and waitied for the music to finish. They wore tall, grey, flat topped conical hats, and long black cloaks under which you could see the white robes that would later appear and whirl. The hats symbolise their tombstones, the black cloaks their tombs; so their white robes, which are revealed when they dance, presumably represent their spiritual souls, though in this I'm only speculating. I also read that the white robes symobise 'the sky, the divine universe and the world of spirits'. In any case, the relationship between death and life and the liberation from death that union with God brings seems to be a central theme.

One Dervish, the leader, the 'Dede', kept his black robe on throughout the 'Sema' (the name for the ritual dance), and formed the central axis around which the other five dervishes circled and whirled. Their movement, both in their wide circular movement around the hall and their faster movements around themselves, was anti-clockwise, or right to left from their perspective. The Dede, however, who was also older than the others, didn't always stand still but sometimes walked around and between them. Towards the end he also started to whirl, though slower than the others whilst with his right arm revealing only the upper half of his white robes.

I would say eighty to ninety percent of the 40 minutes dancing time of the other dervishes was spent spinning on their own axes. Presumably, training gets them used to this and they don't get dizzy. Certainly they didn't wobble when they would abruptly halt, as they did at regular intervals to bow once again to the Dede and the invisible Sheikh. I'd thought I might get dizzy just looking at them, but I didn't. I wonder if this was because their movements were so controlled and harmonious.

As they whirl their heads are bent slightly to the left, their arms raised perpendicular to their shoulders- the left slightly higher than the right. The higher arm points to the sky and therefore God, the lower to the earth and therefore man. The dervish himself in his loving dance acts as a bridge between the two. The youngest of the dervishes, who was also the slimmest, the fastest and most gracious, can't have been more than twenty, while another man was much bigger and in his late thirties I should think.

Luckily, I was able to get some fairly good video footage of the event on my Canon camera. Unsurprisingly, and luckily, flashes were not allowed, though one did go off. Everyone remembered, however, not to clap when the Sema ended. As we were told, it was a religious ceremony so this was not expected.

Earlier in the day, I went into the town's main Mosque next to Rumi's tomb. The same suspended concentric circles of hanging lights I'd seen years ago in the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, and as usual it was nice to walk on the gorgeous carpets and sit serenely against the wall. Maybe if it wasn't wrong of me it was at least odd of me to be reading from Ian McEwan's 'Saturday' as others knelt and bowed and recited their daily prayers. But I didn't think it disrespectful and it felt like such a relaxing place to read. No one said a thing. From the visitor's notice outisde they are mainly worried about shoe wearing (of course) and people lying down and staring up at the dome.

Though my day ended sublimely, it started off on a strangely stressful note. I had to pay for the evening's ceremony in a foreign currency, the euro, which I thought was totally bizarre. So I had to go to a bank and wait 30 minutes to change 26 lira back into 15 euro. In conservative, religious Konya there are few tourists and no exchange offices. Despite that they know all tourists want to watch the dervishes. But so odd to think they'd be carrying euros with them, and not the local currency, as if they had flown in from abroad to this isolated town just for the ceremony. Oh well, funny really.

I managed to buy another MP3 player too; but with no mp3's to listen to the energetic tones of Turkish radio will have to suffice for now. Luckily this is fine, because in fact I quite like it.