Happy World Dance Day 2016!

Armada and Dance...

Ms. Seval Ugur who is one of the pioneers of tango dancers who also performed
at the Armada Hotel, reading the official Dance Day message in 2004!

Since 1994, the year of our foundation, Armada and dance is a couple that never left each other!
Today is the international Dance Day held by CID and here is the 2016 official dance message:

The official message for
Dance Day
29 April 2016

    The media report mainly on dance performances, rarely on dance classes. On the other hand learning dance is more widespread than performing: ten times more people practice dance in class than perform on stage.

    The current economic crisis barely affected dance schools: while many businesses closed very few dance schools did, at worst they lost some students. This proves once more that dance is among the most basic needs - people opt to reduce other expenses rather than stop paying for dance classes.

    State subsidies to companies and public conservatories were reduced, so they turn more and more to private sponsors. Private schools rely on fees paid by students so they turn increasingly to advertising to attract more students. They enlarge the range of dances taught, they organize events, they become more outward and flexible.

    Unfortunately organizations in some countries try to limit the number of dance teachers by putting pressure on governments to recognize only diplomas offered by them. We believe that teaching dance should be open to all without any restrictions.

    Nothing should stop an individual from teaching, learning or performing an art, whether music, theater, dance, painting or poetry.

    We do encourage all to study seriously and obtain certificates and diplomas in order to gain the confidence of students, but we insist that qualifications should not be restrictive by keeping others from teaching in private practice. Governments should resist pressure from interest groups trying to create their own monopoly in any art.

    A good professional is happy to rely on his/her talent, knowledge and reputation, not on privileges accorded by regulations keeping others from competing and comparing with him. Art by definition is inclusive, not exclusive.

    Dance Day 2016 is dedicated to maintaining an open doors policy in teaching dance.

Alkis Raftis
President of the International Dance Council CID, 
UNESCO, Paris

April 30th, UNESCO International Jazz Day! Let there be music in your life!

Among Armada traditions Jazz has a special place. Below are some jazz masters who had  concerts at the Armada Hotel in the then “Radio Bar” and some of our Jazz Events:

• Sylvie Cobo - Emanuel de Bonneville, “La Baronne”, Concert Series at the Radio Bar, 1995-1998
• Judy & Jacky Duo Concert Series at the Radio Bar, 2002
• Bilal Karaman, “Turkish Jazz Feast”, Valentine’s Day 2012, Armada Terrace
• Dolunay Obruk - Ercüment Dolunay Jazz Duo,  Armada Terrace, 2010
• Emin Fındıkoğlu Trio “Love and Jazz at the Breakfast”, Valentine’s Day 2010, Armada Terrace
• Baki Duyarlar, City of Hotels gala Jazz Piano, Armada Salon
• Stephan Micus, Festival guest, 2008
• “Monofiks”, “Ricky Ford” (Bilgi University Jazz Groups), On Cue Trio (Galatasaray University Jazz Group), Street Concerts, Sultanahmet Square, 2005
• Sunny Murray, Solo Jazz Concerts, Armada Terrace, 2000
• Alain Buisson - Mathieu Leygonie, “Premier Symptome”, Concert Series, Radio Bar, 1997
• Beth Marie, Emin Fındıkoğlu, “Ballads & Blues”, Concert, Radio Bar, 2014
• Bora Çeliker Trio, Jazz Nights at the Radio Bar, 2015
• Batu Akyol, Director, “Jazz in Turkey” (*) –Private Showing of the Documentary , 2013

(*) In the Honor of UNESCO International Jazz Day, the award winning documentary “Jazz in Turkey’”will be shown in every room of Armada Hotel during the last week of April.

Turkey Celebrates March 21, World Poetry Day

Children reading a panegyric during a festival in Timbuktu.
Source: UN Photo/Marco Dormino

"Every poem is unique but each reflects the universal in human experience, the aspiration for creativity that crosses all boundaries and borders, of time as well as space, in the constant affirmation of humanity as a single family."

Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO

Afsar Timucin

"World Poetry Day" on March 21, 2015, will be celebrated in Turkey as usual. 

After a proposal that has been given to UNESCO by Turkish PEN Centre in 1997, "March 21" was approved as World Poetry Day in 1999. Since then, each year a poet from Turkey who won the yearly poetry prize of Turkish PEN Centre, writes poetry message. 

This year's message was written by Afşar Timuçin, philosopher and poet (1939- *) who won the 2015 Poetry Prize of Turkish PEN Centre. 

International Dance Day 2014 Message by Mourad Merzouki: "Push your luck... never stop dancing!"

Mourad Merzouki

International Dance Day 2014 message author is Mourad Merzouki!

The International Theatre Institute announced that following the footsteps of Merce Cunningham, Maurice Béjart, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Mourad Merzouki - the French choreographer, dancer, director of the Centre chorégraphique de Créteil et du Val de Marne and of Käfig’s company, and above all, the famous face of hip hop in France with Accrorap and Pôle Pik companies- will be giving the 2014 International Dance Day Message.

Since its creation in 1982, the International Dance Day celebrated every year on the birthday of the creator of modern ballet Jean-Georges Noverre 29th April, is the occasion to give homage to dance and its universality, crossing all political, cultural and ethnic barriers.
The International Theatre Institute marks this global occasion each year by inviting an outstanding choreographer or dancer to write a message. This message is

2014 Program

translated into more than 20 languages and released throughout the ITI network (more than 70 ITI Centres and numerous Cooperating Members) and dance organizations worldwide.
ITI also seeks to promote national and worldwide activities celebrating International Dance Day. Special dance award ceremonies, charity performances for organizations, people or specific issues connected with dance, conferences, meetings with dancers, amongst others will be held and indexed on a worldwide map available on ITI’s website from 1st April onwards. ITI will celebrate International Dance Day at UNESCO in Paris on 29th April, with the presence of Mourad Merzouki.

Being an institution which fully supports the preservation of artistic and cultural events as an integral part of quintessential Istanbul lifestyle, such as "dance" performances, Armada Hotel sincerely stands behind this message…
Happy International Dance Day!

Here is the original text of the message:

Every artist takes pride in his art.

Every artist will always defend the art form whose encounter has changed his life.
For that which he has sought and lost and for that which he has the burning desire to share: be it the echo of a voice, the discovered word, the interpretation of a text for humanity, the music without which the universe will stop speaking to us, or the movement which opens the doors to grace.

I have, for dance, not only the pride of a dancer and choreographer, but profound gratitude. Dance gave me my lucky break. It has become my ethics by virtue of its discipline and provided the means through which I discover the world daily.

Closer to me than anything else, it gives me strength each day through the energy and generosity as only dance can. Its poetry comforts me.

Could I say that I wouldn’t exist without dance? Without the capacity for expression it has given me? Without the confidence I have found in it to overcome my fears, to avoid dead ends?

Thanks to dance, immersed in the beauty and complexity of the world, I have become a citizen. A peculiar citizen who reinvents the social codes in the course of his encounters, remaining true to the values of the hip-hop culture which transforms negative energy into a positive force.

I live and breathe dance daily as an honour. But I am living with this honour deeply concerned. I witness around me the loss of bearings and the inability of some of the youth from the working class, growing up in tension and frustration, to imagine their future. I am one of them; so are we all. I am driven, perhaps more than others, by setting an example, to help them fuel their lust for life. 

For isn’t society richer with the richness of each of us?

Culture, more than any discourse, unites. So have courage and take risks despite the obstacles and the hatred with which you will no doubt be confronted; the beauty of the world will always be by your side. Like dance has been for me. With its singular force to eliminate social and ethnic distinctions, leaving but the movement of bodies in their essence, of human beings returning to their pure expression, unique and shared.

I would like to end by quoting René Char whose words remind me daily to not let anyone confine us to scripted roles.

“Push your luck, hold on tight to your good fortune, and take your risk. Watching you, they will get used to it.”

So try, fail, start all over again but above all, dance, never stop dancing!

Translation: Petya Hristova and Charlene Lim

Source: http://www.international-dance-day.org/en/message.html 

Programme of 29th April celebration: 
-Reading of the international message 2014 by Mourad Merzouki ;
-Screening of video excerpts ;
-Dance performances: Company Käfig, Mourad Merzouki – excerpts from the company’s repertoire ; Company Massala, Fouad Boussouf – Transe ; Company XXe Tribu, François Lamargot – Akasha.

UNESCO, 125 av. de Suffren
Tuesday 29th april, 7.30 pm
Free entrance upon reservation
RSVP: +33 1 45 68 48 82 / info@iti-worldwide.org 

Contact information: Zoé Simard, Events & Communication Manager, ITI, z.simard@iti-worldwide.org 

With the support of the Permanent Delegation of France to UNESCO, and the Centre chorégraphique National de Créteil et du Val de Marne / Compagnie Käfig.

World Poetry Day - 2013!

Today is the World Poetry Day!
We wish all of our friends and guests to live in a world with poetic harmony...

"Poetry is a journey -not in a dream world, but often close to individual emotions, aspirations and hopes. Poetry gives form to the dreams of peoples and expresses their sprituality in the strongest terms- it emboldens all of us also to change the world..."

Irina Bokova, Director General, UNESCO

Offical Message for World  Poetry Day 2013

World Dance Day 2012

Armada celebrates the International World Dance Day, 2012!

This year's official Dance Day message was written by Alkis Raftis, President of the International Dance Council CID, and focused on "dance therapy"...
Here is the whole text!