Kurdish men and women dancing. The latter are wearing their traditional festive costume.

This kind of dancing, called ‘Govend’ or ‘Dîlan’ in Kurdish, and ‘Halay’ in Turkish is the most popular dance form in Southeastern Anatolia. Typically, Govend/Halay dancers form a circle or a line, while holding each other with the little finger or shoulder to shoulder or even hand to hand with the last and first player holding a piece of cloth. Men and women make separate or mixed lines, depending on regional custom; here the line has an intermediate form: a women’s group has joined a men’s group, making one line, but still separate (except for one couple, where the two groups joined). While dancing, the row of dancers moves to the right (except in Hakkâri, where it goes generally to the left).

The young woman in red, standing in front of the dance line, wears an old-style white garment with sleeves ending in long lappets. These are winded up around the upper arms, in order to protect the (more expensive) upper dress during daily work. On festive occasions, the wrapping is less complete, leaving the lappets’ ends free. These obtained ‘personal waving banners’ can have a striking effect while dancing; the arm movements of some Kurdish dances were clearly designed to produce this result.

Correspondent: J.M.Criel, Antwerpen.
Source: Folkdance Group Kavak (Dances from Anatolia), Antwerpen/Belgium & Wikipedia.