Commercialization of folk dancing in Turkey

Nowadays, we can see the effect of popular culture in every field. This effect, which shows parallelism with the increase in mass media tools, has played the main role in the commercialism of public dances. The community of folk dances, which tries to form the market share in the industry of culture, has created its own audience, has come up with marketing strategies and has made folk dance a product of popular culture. Conservative discourses on the efforts to create a national repertoire have lost their influence over time. Diversity in implementation and lack of have led the transformation of folk dances in Turkey. Competitions in which instant performances of groups representing local dance cultures in our country were evaluated once attracted the attention of a large audience. However, as seen in many popular culture products, it was quickly consumed and today, is of interest to only a very narrow segment. This section consists of contestants, relatives, musicians, costumers and instructors. The dances performed in this environment are subject to an audit through evaluation criteria. However, the remaining areas, that is, the activities of folk dances in the formal education, touristic demonstrations, association activities and professional societies were the places where there was no control and thus the transformation took place rapidly. In addition to this unrestraint, increase of popular cultural tools and social media opportunities, has provided great convenience to those who choose folk dances as professions. However, this branch of profession is an unequaled job, which does not require a union or a diploma, is sometimes employed without insurance, and has a vague market share. It can be practiced part time as well as in another profession. For a certain period, a section that tried to make money from folk dances, which were emphasized nationally, commodified dances in such an unsupervised environment. The dances are now commercial, they are worth as much as they are bought and sold. The process of commercialization of Turkish folk dances is summarized in our thesis study with three breaking points. These breakpoints were initiated in the 1950s with the initiative of Yapı ve Kredi Bank and as a result, folk dance competitions were organized in Istanbul. (one purpose was to advertise the bank) In 1975, the State Folk Dance Society was founded (thus, folk dances gained a professional value in the face of other branches of art.) In 1999, as a private sector initiative with the professional community of Sultans of Dance, folk dance was widely accepted as a profession. The change of dance art in the world within the cultural industry has been evaluated through the New York City Ballet Society, the Azerbaijan State Folk Dance Ensemble and the Moisiyev Dance Company (Russia). Transformation of folk dances in Turkey was examined in context of Sultans of the Dance Community (Fire of Anatolia community in advancing process) Professional communities in our country, which set out to follow and imitate the professional communities in the world, find very little space even in the market share of the culture industry.