If your New Year’s resolutions include getting fit but you’re either daunted by or done with the gym scene, check out İnci Turan’s African Dance workshops. It may well be the key to starting the New Year on the right foot – even if you have two left feet


If you can talk, you can sing.  If you walk, you can dance.
-African Proverb
   
Long before Thai boxing, Pilates or spinning, there was African dance and the electrifying sounds of African drumming.  Bringing mind, body and spirit together to the rhythmic beat of African drums played live at the site, African Dance takes you on a fitness journey that bridges the gap between exercise and dance.  And if you’ve never danced before or think you can’t, think again: this is a form of dance that encourages you to connect with the rhythm you were born with and develop your coordination in a way that none other can.  (By the way, African Dance is the predecessor of many other more commonly known dance forms such as Jazz, Tap, Afro-Cuban, Salsa and Hip-Hop.)  It also happens to enhance thinking functions by developing the right side of the brain, known to influence creativity and overall intelligence.

Currently one of the only two African Dance teachers in Turkey (the other one is her husband), Turan grew up in Germany and Turkey, studying modern dance and excelling at volleyball at school before moving to New York, where she lived for 11 years and ended up with an Economics degree which led to a career in the corporate world.  It was while playing volleyball in Central Park that the African drum circles there turned her on to African Dance.  She grabbed the West African djembe drum and began learning as much as she could about the exotic music it played.  She went on to take dance lessons at reputable places such as Harlem Black Theatre, YMCA, Crunch Gym, and Djoniba Dance & Drum Centre. She moved back home to Turkey in September 2005, starting work not only as an African Dance teacher, but also as a management consultant giving corporate motivational, team building and icebreaker workshops incorporating African Dance & Drumming.  In 2006 she also formed the only African Dance Company in Turkey, comprising 3 drummers and 3 dancers.
Turan instructs together with her husband, Guershon Jocelyn, a personal trainer and sports medicine specialist who hails from the United States. 
Lead drummer Tom Camidge is from England and the only percussionist expert in African drumming (primarily djembe) in Turkey. Tom learned to play the djembe from Sekou Kieta and percussion at the Gambia National Dance School in Africa, and Norwich Samba School in England. 
Unlike today’s sterile cosmopolitan gym fare, typically squeezed into frenetic schedules maintained and managed amid a sea of technological gadgetry, African Dance offers participants an opportunity to reconnect with something far more elemental.  “Dance is natural in our bodies. It is a primal form of communication and is very deeply rooted in us,” explains Turan.  She adds, “Singing together with dancing is what binds a community together, being a way of expressing joy sorrow, and passion.”
The group notes in its corporate communications the recorded fact that spiritual leaders and healers were first dancers, and that in many cases the dances of Africa are thousands of years old.  African dance was performed for any significant event or right of passage from birth to death and certain dances were used specifically for healing the body, mind, or spirit. There is a certain heartbeat that you feel when you connect with the rhythms of the drum.  The energy comes from the earth through the drummer, to the drum, and then out, to convey its message. 
Coming from a people who did not separate spirituality from everyday life, dance continues to be a form of worship with the body.  “When we allow ourselves to move from the inside out, we dance our prayers, and move naturally into healing and harmony with ourselves and our world,” points out Turan.  Traditionally in Africa, dance, along with stories, song and ritual made up a seamless part of the fabric of life. Traditional dance movements and sequences were often drawn from observations of the external world from watching the animals, the elements, and the everyday movements of people. However the most essential component of the African healing dance is the inner world of the dancer, the spirit one brings to the dance, which is the source of healing.
On the corporate front, Turan says, the Team-Building Workshops create a sense of team spirit, can-do attitude and loyalty to the company.  They also have the power to motivate employees and to foster an attitude of unity.  These ice-breaking workshops consist of an African Dance Workshop and an African Drumming Workshop.
Current Class Schedule & Locations:

Wednesdays
19:30-21:00, Bagdat Cad., Tan Durak Sok Mesut Apt No.458 K4 Suadiye
 (Above Citibank)
160YTL/month (4 classes)
Saturdays
17:00-18:30, (Accompanied by live percussion!) Hamalbası Cad
Sinepera Bldg 12/A Kat 3 (Ingiliz Kons. Karsisi) Galatasaray.
160YTL/month (4 classes)
Thursdays
19:00-20:30, Gym-Fit 1.Levent, Next to Göz Hastanesi.
160YTL/month (4 classes)

For more information:  www.afrikadansi.com