The origins of westernized theatre in Turkey lie in the Tanzimat reform movement, which was in turn inspired by the impact of the French Revolution. The institutionalization of this late encounter was made possible by the foundation of municipal theatres (1914) and of state theatres (1949). The municipal theatres have been most influential, and have had more flexible characteristics as they have been minutely connected with tradition. The state theatres, on the other hand, have been on a mission to educate audiences through their large-scale productions, which the private-enterprise theatres would not possibly dare to produce. They have also been tightly connected with Western-style theatre in their repertoire, and in their understanding of dramaturgy and directing in their productions. Today it is still debatable whether these enormous institutional theatres function effectively or not. The fact that the municipal and state theatres are consistently offering the cheapest tickets and yet not managing to keep a loyal group of audiences is one of the reasons why nearly two hundred plays at independent theatres debut in Istanbul every year. There have been attempts to overcome problems of quality inherent in the structure of these theatres by other theatre groups in premises where more elaborate productions of plays from the mainstream have been performed.

In 2017, a group of African women migrants and I devised Uncomfortable Conversations for FORWARD, a London NGO, to speak publicly about FGM and gendered marginalization. This article, braiding theories from Tompkins, Rancière and Kershaw, explores the effects on participating actors.

David Wiles discusses the state of theatre history and the status of the theatre historian according to the voices of academics working on and in the Western tradition. In this article I intend to briefly contribute to those debates with reflections on how we make theatre history, and what we are working on, in the Latin American academy today.

With the inauguration of the presidential system in Turkey, theatre as an institution is at a historical crossroads. By 15 July 2018, just before the controversial emergency law was lifted, two decrees restricting the autonomy of artists working at state theatres, operas and ballets were issued. The first decree replaces a law from 1949 which secures autonomy over budgeting and programming.1 The second places all state theatres under direct control of the president. During the summer, the institutions were temporarily closed until they were harmonized with the new political system. With this structural change, a lengthier political process of shifting powers and centralization is being consolidated. But there has also been a more fundamental epistemological shift going on in Turkey's ideological consciousness, which is deeply rooted in a history of the public sector and of state institutionalism.

This submission by IFTR's Performance and Disability working group features responses by six participants – voices projected from Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Wales, England and Australia – to Per.Art's production Dis_Sylphide, which was presented on 7 July 2018 at the Cultural Institution Vuk Karadžić as part of IFTR's conference in Belgrade at the invitation of the Performance and Disability working group. Per.Art is an independent theatre company founded in 1999 in Novi Sad, Serbia, by the internationally recognized choreographer and performer Saša Asentić, the company's artistic director. The company brings together people with learning disabilities, artists (theatre, dance and visual arts), special educators, representatives of cultural institutions, philosophers, architects and students to make work. This co-authored submission examines how the production responds to three important dance works of the twentieth century – Mary Wigman's Hexentanz (1928), Pina Bausch's Kontakthof (1978) and Xavier Le Roy's Self Unfinished (1998) – to explore normalizing and normative body concepts in dance theatre and in society, and how they have been migrating over the course of dance histories. The shared experience of witnessing the performance provoked discussion on the migration of dance forms across time and cultures, as well issues of access and (im)mobility, which are especially pertinent to a disability studies context.

After the military intervention of 1980, Turkey's intellectual and social democrats were devastated – imprisoned, escaped to exile, silenced, killed – in the hands of the coup d’état and all the prohibitions that came with it until the first half of the 1980s. Then the famous Turgut Özal government with its unprecedented liberal economic policies came into the picture. Towards the end of the 1980s, a new generation of theatre and performance artists started to stage their response to all this madness and became visible to older generations who had long lost hope and vitality in terms of artistic and humanitarian production. I had the chance to get involved in this artistic endeavour through some of the emerging initiatives, such as Green Grapes Dance Company, Bilsak Theatre Company, Şahika Tekand, Kumpanya, Dance Factory, DAGS (Interdisciplinary Young Artists Association), Hüseyin Katırcıoğlu and Assos Theatre Festival. The works were relentless and new. Bodies were in need of fresh air, and artistic expression in performance did not follow the traditional routes or accepted notions while fully embracing the possibility of not being seen. Actually, the emerging artists did not give a damn. Interestingly – or obviously – enough, most of them were outcasts coming from other fields such as sociology, literature, engineering, law and so on. In relation to this, the artistic and performative visions they put forward were truly interdisciplinary. The contemporary visual art scene and performing arts were in an honest conversation perhaps for the first time in Turkish art history.

Based on my experiences and observations as a dancer, performer, researcher and culture manager, this article aims to shine a light on the performing-arts field, particularly on contemporary dance, in Turkey in the twenty-first century. Given the current political, social and economic shifts in Turkey, which have doubtless affected artistic practice and structures, it is important to draw attention to and explore the emerging players in the field of dance – dance institutions, producers, artists and audience. In addition, it is necessary to create awareness about the new generation's efforts to develop the field in relation to new organizational and partnership structures, shifting from a vertical hierarchy to autonomous and collective working models.

In the summer of 2018, the theatre company Hemhâl, which I co-founded with Nezaket Erden and Hakan Emre Ünal, travelled to a small village in southern Turkey. The main reason for our trip was to realize Nezaket's dream of taking her widely acclaimed solo performance, Dirmit, Dear Shameless Death, to the village where her extended family live. Furthermore, we thought that this performance could resonate with the villagers since it is an adaptation of a Turkish novel by Latife Tekin which talks about the struggles and internal conflicts of a migrant family moving from a small rural village to the big city.

Fire is one of the most magical elements in existence. It is everywhere: in the sky and on the ground, in hearts and in minds, inside and out, in water, in the air and in the soil … It is both divine and demonic. It is between light and dark. It is the source of both life and death. It is a clash. A clash that gave rise to our existence and, simultaneously, the creation of an error.