In 107 countries around the world, Çiğdem Yorgancıoğlu, who travels tribes interpreting ethnic and theatrical dances, once again converged with the theme of a mixed exhibition involving art, artists, and art enthusiasts through her dance performance.

Between January 10-17, NEXT Pera Art Gallery hosted the ‘Live With Your Dream’ mixed painting and crafts exhibition organized by Ferhat Aligir and Nihat Tokat. Anzhelika Aydın, also an artist, was part of the exhibition organization committee. The curation of the exhibition was carried out by the artist Zehra Aksoy.

The opening cocktail of the mixed exhibition, featuring works by artists such as Ali Şimşir, Ayfer Yelken, Ahmet Riza, Anzhelika Aydın, Azniv Çoban, Ayşe Dedelioğlu, and many others, took place at NEXT Pera Art Gallery. The event also included a discussion with retired ambassador Uğur Ergun as the guest, hosted by Çiğdem Yorgancıoğlu’s Chi Ci Talks program in collaboration with NEXT Pera Art Gallery and Turkey News Portal. Participants from the Healthy Life Association were also present. After the exhibition organization, Yorgancıoğlu took the stage.

World traveler, economist, painter, theatrical drama contemporary ethnic dance instructor, and artist Çiğdem Yorgancıoğlu once again joined dancers and art enthusiasts at the opening cocktail of this exhibition. The story of her performance, in her own words, is as follows:

‘THE SHAMANIC CYCLE OF ABSTRACT DREAM

Entering the stage with a green sickle, green spear, and green sword, the dance begins with the astral journey of a wolf warrior who postpones all times and turns the entire globe into a space. Following the entry into the dance, which attempts to rush into the dreams of the Shaman Tribe in the green sleep, trying not to turn the sweet dream of deep fears into a nightmare, a dance interpretation spreading MIM doctrine and CHI initiations to the universe takes place. Right after this interpretation, Yorgancıoğlu initiates a seamless transition and a dream passage, starting ‘Phantom of the Opera’ with a commentary that opens with the physical renewal during deep sleep, related to the theme of the exhibition. The timeless and spaceless void in the stage of sleep, where memory is reinforced, has splashed the dream of the tribe in the previous dance into the opera. And the ghost leaps in his sleep. The passage between wakefulness and sleep takes place after the dance. Alpha waves are spreading. A lightning strikes. The other tribe has entered into trance. They can no longer hide their faces in the cycle of the mask ritual. This part of the dream is a snippet from the enigmatic choreography that is loaded with references to Çiğdem Yorgancıoğlu’s book ‘Eski Köye Yeni Modernite Novus Ordo Seclorum,’ which deals with the dilemmas of primitive modern man with globalization. Doubting tradition, sensory experience, she enters among the viewers with the symbol ‘Cogito ergo sum’ – ‘I think, therefore I am.’ MIM CHI 360 answers to the wizard within her in a wise manner. They were always transitional, she says. Viewers follow the visual echoes of these symbols in hand movements and circles drawn in the air. It’s a moment of liberation. Saying ‘Who I am is determined not by objective data but by my dominant choice,’ MIM CHI rambles in her dream. At that moment, a rebellion erupts against whatever keeps inside different from the outside.

Canvas, oil paint, acrylic, pastel, and spray paint are used on masks to create styles of different movements such as Pointillism, Cubism, Pop Art, changing the faces behind the masks, trying to disrupt the waves of sleep. The dream of the shaman drives away this ghostly fear. The patterns and colors in the paintings are all happy. The curtain falls, the eye’s curtain opens. The mask is on the ground.

DO DREAMS COME TRUE, DANCE MASKS, AND SURPRISING COINCIDENCES

Yorgancıoğlu experiences two initiations during the dance, and it is a moment when the mask on the faces of two works in the exhibition matches. Like facing her own face. One of the works belongs to Zehra Aksoy, the artist and curator of the exhibition, and this luminous figure in DreamWorld series 3, which you encounter as soon as you enter the venue, coincides with the figurative reflections in the color resonances of the mask in the dance and painting. The other work, a 70 cm x 100 cm oil on canvas, belongs to Çağrı Tunç, one of the prominent names in Wall painting. It’s as if this work, named ‘Spirit of the Forest,’ had a contract with the mask and stepped into the exhibition. One of the most enjoyable and enthusiastic moments of the exhibition, where valuable artists participated, was when artists and art-loving participants danced together with Çiğdem Yorgancıoğlu to different types of music such as rock’n roll, salsa, Argentine tango, with spontaneous fusion interpretations.”