The history of modern art is full of artists who were deprived of their basic human rights or who reflected the conditions of people deprived of their rights. Particularly when it comes to problems of cultural identity, there are many examples of novels, plays, poems and various other mediums taking up issues facing African-Americans, European Jews, homosexuals and many others.

Now a handful of students at Boğaziçi University are staging a musical that takes on the headscarf ban that is in place in many public spheres in Turkey, including universities.
The ban is being debated on a wide range of platforms amongst almost every segment of society, and the performers of the musical dance show titled "Okul Yolu" ("The Road to School") hope to carry the issue to the theater stage from the perspective of collective freedom. The performance, which will have its premiere today on the university's South Campus is a joint effort of the Boğaziçi Theater Club (BÜO) and the Boğaziçi Folklore Club (BÜFK), under the guidance of Metin Göksel and Ömer F. Kurhan.

The performers in the show explain that their main goal was to stage an artistic performance that unites many disciplines, including theater, dance and music, through experimental studies. But while doing this they wanted content dealing with human rights issues and they chose the circumstances of women who wear the headscarf, since the ban is an issue on university campuses across the country.

The show starts with a portrayal of a contemporary Turkish university population, including the country's various youth subcultures, through a number of couples -- one modern, another somewhat traditional, one of left-wing supporters and another of nationalists. There is also a club-going homosexual couple and, finally, a woman who wears the headscarf.

"Even though the main problem we focus on in the performance is that headscarved woman cannot enter the university, we had to depict many other kinds of students. Since we cannot mention all of them, we chose a representative way to do it," says Duygu Dalyanoğlu, one of the performers, during an interview with Sunday's Zaman. Though the headscarved student is the center of the story, she is not the only one whose rights are violated. Other students, including the homosexual couple, get their share criticism from authority figures at times.

All these students wait for the school shuttle and, after the surreal journey to school ends, the security guards check them at the university gate one by one and do not let the woman in the headscarf enter. "They confront a kind of reality that is based on -- and perhaps constructed by -- bans," says Ömer Ongun, another member of the cast. Following the rejection of the headscarved girl, the performance enters a sinister phase in which all the other students drop their personal accessories and perform a dance number while wearing police hats, presenting a choreography that symbolizes militarism. "After the headscarved student becomes isolated, the others transform into imposing figures of pressure," Dalyanoğlu explains.

Asked whether fellow students put pressure on women who wear the headscarf on campus, the students point out that this should be evaluated from a point of view that takes the entire country into account. "In Turkey, certain identities confront limitations to their freedoms in certain periods and the question is how others react to these violations. Do we approach them from the perspective of collective freedoms or not? This is not just about the headscarf ban. There are many other human rights problems in Turkey, concerning Kurdish people, Armenians and homosexuals, for instance. What are the common reactions towards these problems? Is there solidarity among different segments of society for their rights? Or is the reality constructed through restrictions that have somehow been internalized?" Ongun asks, stressing that this does not simply mean that students "police" each other.

The play will also be staged at the upcoming Ankara International Theater Festival, which runs Nov. 14-30. The play has a great importance for many reasons; it is a first in both universities and theater stages in Turkey; it is going to be watched by people who support and criticize the ban, along with those who are exposed to it in a venue where the problem has been going on every day for many years.

"Road to School" will be staged today at 3 p.m. at the Boğaziçi University South Campus' Demir Demirgil Theater. Upcoming performances are slated for Oct. 21, 22, 24, 25 and 28. Tickets are priced at YTL 5. For more information visit www.buo.boun.edu.tr.


TODAYSZAMAN