Ahmet Lüleci was born in Turkey, where he started dancing and performing as a kid, and where he pursued musical study. He arrived in North America in 1985 after having worked as dancer and choreographer with many renowned Turkish dance ensembles. Since then he has taught Turkish folk dances all over the world, choreographed for numerous ensembles, les Sortileges among them, co-founded the World Music and Dance Camp with Joe Graziosi, founded the Boston based Collage Dance Ensemble, won numerous artistic compe titions, and received numerous awards, conducted researches and led travels in Turkey. He is an adjudicator at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod held yearly in Wales. He won an award for his documentary film “in Their Footsteps”. During the pandemic, his numerous Zoom initiatives help maintain the folkdancing scene active. He's currently working on a documentary about Atanas Kolarovski, a professor and choreographer of dances from North Macedonia.
The Black Sea region, in Turkish Karadeniz Bölgesi, in Greek Pontos, is one of the 7 geographical regions of Turkey. It is bordered by the Marmara region to the west, the Central Anatolia region to the south, the Eastern Anatolia region to the southeast, the Republic of Georgia to the northeast, and the Black Sea to the north. It has 18 provinces, and its capital is Trabzon.
Although the population is mostly Turkish, the eastern part of the region is also inhabited by the Laz people, who speak a Kartvelian language close to Georgian and converted to Islam from Georgian Orthodoxy at the end of the Ottoman period, as well as by Muslim Georgians, Hemsin, Armenians who converted to Islam, and Pontic Greeks, who converted to Islam in the 17th century.
The ethnographic richness of this region is reflected in its very diverse folklore. The one we're more familiar with is that of Trabzon (Trebizond or Trapezounta in Greek). Over the weekend, Ahmet will introduce us to dances from several provinces in the Black Sea region.
Karadeniz Bölgesi
Click here to view the full weekend schedule and the registration fees for the workshop.
The workshop will be held at the Éclusiers de Lachine facility located at 70, 15e avenue in Lachine, Montréal. Need help to get there?