Whirling Dervishes demonstrate Turkish tradition

Saturday night, the Whirling Dervishes of Rumi performed the revolving Sema ritual to a packed house at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater as part of the Lotus Festival, the international music festival that drew a numerous spectators and world renowned artists to Bloomington this weekend.\nThe audience filed into the theater and filled nearly every seat after lining up around the block and down Walnut Street for half an hour before the show. The stage was set for the initial part of a ritual that has been performed in much the same way since its inception more than 700 years ago by a Turkish poet and scholar named Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi.\nAfter being introduced by Bloomington Muslim Dialog Group president Ali Korkmaz, nine semazen, or dervishes, took the stage.\nPlayed on traditional Turkish instruments, the ritual began with mood-setting notes from the ud, an 11-string guitar-like instrument. This melodic, haunting music was soon joined by the low, deep tones of the ney, a Turkish reed flute, other instruments and the voices of several of the semazen. \n"I don't know much about what they were singing about, but it was coming from the soul," Bloomington resident Trudy Kaufman said.\nThe song lasted several minutes, with solos from the ney, ud and singers. \n"It was really eerie, the warbling and the way they would attenuate the notes at the end," Clint Wolfe of Evansville, said.\nAt the songs climax, one of the semazen sang, in heartfelt tones, a highly varied and complex melody.\n"It is really neat how you can hear the cyclical form of the music," senior Molly Mitchell said.\nAfter an intermission, the nine musicians returned to the stage accompanied by five dancers. In this second part of the ritual, all 14 men wore tall, cylindrical hats. According to the pamphlet distributed at the door, written by Dr. Celalettin Celebi, this "camel's hair hat (sikke) represents the tombstone of the ego." \nThe "cyclical" music began again, and the five dancers stood and removed their black cloaks, an action that represents their spiritual rebirth to the truth, according to the pamphlet. \nAs they began their spinning dance, the semazen's white skirts, representing the ego's shroud, billowed around them. \n"While whirling, (the semazen's) arms are open: his right arm is directed to the sky, ready to receive God's beneficence; his left hand, upon which his eyes are fastened, is turned toward the earth," Celebi's pamphlet read.\nEach dancer's white costume turned red, pink, green or yellow as he revolved under the stage's colored lights.\n"The flowing of the robes was circular, as it billowed out. They were almost like flowers," Bloomington resident Julia Karr said.\nAt the conclusion of their deliberate, precise whirling and the musicians' spinning, lilting melodies, the dancers resumed their dark cloaks and bowed, thus ending the ritual. \nWolfe said that the presentation was not what he anticipated\n"I guess I expected it to be more high-energy than that. It was pretty low-key," Wolfe said.\nAlthough the performance may not have been what some members of the Bloomington audience expected, Kaufman said she enjoyed it.\n"It was hypnotic, entrancing; beautiful, just beautiful," Kaufman said.\n-- Contact staff writer Melissa Harrold at mejharro@indiana.edu.