Meydana Gel Meydana / Come to the Square (2021)

In June 2013 widespread protests were taking place in İstanbul and across Turkey against plans to redevelop one of the last remaining parks of the city and the increasingly authoritarian rule of the then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Erdem Gündüz, Duran Adam (Standing Man), initiated an unexpectedly effective form of protest by going to Taksim Square, putting his backpack down at his feet and standing still. He explains in an interview how frustrated he was at the media’s misrepresentation of the protests as fleeting and how he spontaneously and instinctively went to the meydan: “to show that the protests were not over. There is one man standing here…” (Mee 2014, 76) Part audio-guide, part video-essay, part scholarly paper, this practice research presentation investigates the convergence between performer’s presence and political action. What happens when there is no meydan or when one is excluded from the official square? Responding to recent conversations on the aesthetic, relational, phenomenological, ethical and political aspects of presence (Giannachi, Kaye & Shanks 2012, Sherman 2016, Taylor 2020, Sauter 2021) from a pedagogical angle, I ask: How can performer training channel its presence-making tools into empowering not only ‘performers’ but anyone to make an appearance in the world, be it through overtly political acts of resistance or activism, amateur or professional performances, or simply (re)actions to the world around them that have the courage and clarity to embody a principle fully and enact a freedom that manifests a world of possibilities?