Perfor­mative Reading:
Salon ve Öyküler
[Salon and Stories]

SALT Galata

Within the scope of Modern Essays 4: SALON, Okan Urun and Gökçe Yiğitel will realize a performative reading titled Salon ve Öyküler [Salon and Stories] in the exhibition space at SALT Galata.

One woman and one man in the SALON. They talk about Ankara, architecture, furniture, state offices, ceremonies, passages. They start telling and reading stories to each other. Stories that sometimes look to Ankara and sometimes İstanbul, but mostly stories about people, changes and their issues… Two people try to read the stories of Vüs’at O. Bener, Tezer Özlü, Tomris Uyar and Özen Yula that date from the 1960s to the 2000s to each other, to the furniture and to time.

SALON is an object and spatial environment-based program in the framework of SALT’s Modern Essays series, which investigates different aspects of modernization in Turkey. SALON presents a three-dimensional moment/section of diligence and simplicity from the Ankara of 1960s, a period overlooked in historical research, a discourse still dominated by the early years of the Republic.

The main display is the original furniture from Butik-A by designers Bediz and Azmi Koz. Butik-A, which opened in Ankara in 1958, is an exceptional attempt to provide and produce designs that are far from the mainstream appetite of the period, yet offer a promise from within that particular time. The set of furniture including a sideboard, dining table, chairs, armchairs, sofas, desk, serving cart, tables is not an arbitrary selection but the relocation of a real living room (salon). Borrowed from the apartment of composer Ulvi Cemal Erkin and pianist Ferhunde Erkin, both key figures in Turkish music also as educators, this set of Butik-A items points to a placid sensitivity in furniture design and production of the time.

Audience participation to Salon ve Öyküler [Salon and Stories] is restricted to 30 people. Those who wish to attend need to send an e-mail to salt@saltonline.org by June 13.

The rehearsals will take place in the exhibition space on Saturday, June 9 and Sunday, June 10 between 13.00-18.00 and on Wednesday, June 13 between 14.00-18.00 and will be open to the public.

The performative reading will be realized in Turkish.

Okan Urun
Okan Urun completed both his undergraduate (2005) and post-graduate (2007) studies at the Theatre Department, Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle. Concurrently, he graduated from the Acting Department of Paris Hector Berlioz Municipality Conservatory (2005).

Urun founded the inter-disciplinary group ‘biriken’, producing video, installation and theater pieces, together with Melis Tezkan in 2006. ‘biriken’ took part in many international and local festivals and venues. The new work of ‘biriken’ Re: Fwd: die in good company will present its premier performance in iDANS Festival in October 2012.

Apart from biriken, Urun has directed the stage readings of plays by Rodrigo Garcia, Rémi De Vos, Sergi Belbel; has participated as performer in Dört Bacaklı Şey by Emmanuel Daumas (2012), Paul Leger Show by Yeşim Tabak-Zeynep Aksoy (2011), Bozuk Saat by Mark Levitas (2010) and in the short-film overtime by Gürcan Keltek (2011).

Since 2008, Urun has been giving lectures in the acting department of Maltepe University.

Gökçe Yiğitel
After her graduation from Central School of Speech and Drama M.A. Advanced Theatre Practice – Performance branch, Yiğitel founded dANTE OR dIE Theatre Company with her colleagues, working and producing devised theater pieces as well as site-specific pieces. In addition she worked with other companies such as Theatralia Ensemble Not In My Name, Camden People’s Theatre (2005) and Ektos Dance Theatre Gnosis, The Place Resolution! (2006).

Yiğitel acted at Tiyatro Oyunevi Son Bir Kez (2010) and Tiyatro Öldü (2011) and continued her solo and collaborative performances. She participated in Galata Perform’s Visibility Project 7 with the performance work Out For a Walk (2011) in collaboration with Yeşim Tabak and Zeynep Aksoy. Yiğitel will take part in Re: Fwd: die in good company, a new stage work of biriken in October 2012.