OLAC Record oai:www.mpi.nl:MPI1399012

Metadata
Title:		Dengbej House
		The dynamics of Kurdish folk music and its performers, expressions of identity in Eastern Turkey
Contributor (researcher):		Wendelmoet Hamelink
Coverage:		Turkey
Date:		2008-05-14
Description:		The Dengbêj house This recording was made in the Dengbêj house in Diyarbakir. The Dengbêj house is an old building that was renovated and opened as a Dengbêj house in May 2007, as part of a cultural project on Dengbêj funded by the European Union and the municipality of Diyarbakir. It is situated in the old center of the city. The building is surrounded by a wall, one enters via a gate and comes on a big courtyard. There are tables and chairs for visitors and the Dengbêj themselves to sit. At least some Dengbêj are present almost every day, varying from a few to a dozen Dengbêj at a time. When there are enough singers present (at least five) they start singing and can continue for hours. The singing mostly takes place on the courtyard, in open air. There are also some inside salons for the Dengbêj to gather. There is a large and cool basement for warm summerdays, with long benches against the walls to sit on. There are two more official rooms, beautifully decorated, for special occasions. And there is a stage outside in for special performances. My recordings in the Dengbêj house I have made many recordings with the Dengbêj of Diyarbakir. In 2007 first in the cultural center Dicle-Firat, where they were performing on the courtyard. After that in 2007 and 2008 in the Dengbêj house. I also interviewed most of them, which made that everybody knew me as well, and that recordings of performances were made in a relatively natural setting. Information on this recording (14-05-2008) Although I often recorded on the courtyard, I also took some recordings in the special room, a more official setting. This is one of them. Because both the room and the group of people were smaller there was more concentration for the performances. The Dengbêj sang longer pieces than usual, probably because at the courtyard there is always some pressure of the visitors and the other Dengbêj to keep it short. In this more official setting they wanted to give a good piece of work.They seemed to be less at ease, which makes that there is less interaction between the Dengbêj. These performances are part of a two-hour recording in which the Dengbêj take turns. They are all regular visitors of the Dengbêj house and live in the center of Diyarbakir, or in the surrounding villages. They come from different places in Eastern Turkey and many of them migrated to Diyarbakir in the 1980s or 1990s. Comparison This recording can be compared with the more natural recordings outside in the courtyard, and in the basement, where there is more interaction.
		I was born in 1975 in Holland and Dutch is my mother tongue. I learned to speak English, German and Swiss-German fluently, and French, Turkish and Kurdish on an intermediate level. I conducted this research as part of my PhD project on Kurdish singers which I started in 2006. In 2007 during my first fieldwork period I communicated in Turkish with the respondants. In 2008 my Kurdish was better and I started to communicate in Kurdish as well.
Identifier:		oai:www.mpi.nl:MPI1399012
Identifier (URI):		http://corpus1.mpi.nl/ds/imdi_browser?openpath=MPI1399012%23
Publisher:		Wendelmoet Hamelink
		Leiden University, LIAS and the Department of Cultural Anthropology
OLAC Info
Archive:		The Language Archive's IMDI portal
Description:		http://www.language-archives.org/archive/www.mpi.nl
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OAI Info
OaiIdentifier:		oai:www.mpi.nl:MPI1399012
DateStamp:		2011-08-17
GetRecord:		OAI-PMH request for simple DC format
Search Info
Citation:		Wendelmoet Hamelink (researcher). 2008-05-14. Wendelmoet Hamelink.