Human Tornadoes Hit the Stage
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One of the biggest events of the season will take place on Monday, before the WMF even begins: the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey are giving a rare performance at the Chicago Theatre as part of the Chicago Turkish Festival, which runs through Wednesday. The dervishes are Sufis, or Islamic mystics, members of an order called the Mevlevi that was founded in the city of Konya by the 13th-century Turkish poet Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi. After Kemal Ataturk established the secular Turkish Republic in 1923, Sufism was driven underground. By the mid-50s the laws had been relaxed, allowing the Mevlevi to again perform their ceremonies publicly, though only in Konya and Istanbul; Konya dervishes make up the ensemble coming to Chicago. The primary Mevlevi ceremony, known as the sema, combines music, poetry, and dance in a demonstration of devotion to the divine; the motion of the dancers is meant to symbolize the movement of all things in the universe.
Tickets are available at the Chicago Theatre box office (312-443-1130 or 312-902-1500) or through Ticketmaster (312-559-1212); for additional information, go to chicagoturkishfestival.com.
