The 35th Festival of Folklore Dances of Kurdistan began with on 18 May with a performance of traditional Kurdish Govend dancing on the streets of Esslingen, Germany. Over 400 people presented their Kurdish clothes and danced traditional Kurdish Govend dances from the four parts of the region known as Kurdistan, spanning areas of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
The Festival of Folklore Dances of Kurdistan was first celebrated in 1986 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, aiming to keep the Kurdish culture alive for the diaspora in Europe. The Kurdish circle dancing called ‘Govend’ or Dîlan’ is a key element of Kurdish culture. Each Kurdish region in the Middle East has developed unique dances, a form of communal expression often used to tell stories of events that took place in the history of the region.
For the Kurds living in the diaspora, the dancing of Govend is an expression of the preservation of their culture and a defence against assimilation. In particular, it is young Kurdish women who dance the Govend wearing the traditional garb.
Over 1200 people followed the dance display that took place over the course of the 18 and 19 May in Germany. Women played a leading role in this year’s festival, with many dance groups consisting exclusively of female members. Kurdish writer Firaz Baran said that this trend illustrates the struggle of Kurdish women in their vanguard role to the Kurdish people as a whole. He explained that they “play this pioneering role in all areas of the struggle, from the female guerrilla fighters in the Kurdish mountains to politics, dance and art.”
The first prize was taken by the group ‘Koma Şiyar’ from the German city of Salzgitter with dances from Diyarbakır (Amed), a Kurdish-majority region in Turkey. The second place was awarded to the group ‘Koma Evîna Welat’, an all-female group from the Swiss city of Basel that presented dances from the Kurdish-majority Varto (Gimgim) region in eastern Turkey. ‘Koma Govenda Baran’ from Cologne was awarded the third place and also the prize for the best traditional clothes for their performance of dances from the Hakkari (Colemêrg) region, a Kurdish region in the southeast of Turkey.
The prize for the best research was given to the group ‘Kulilkên Welat’ from Duisburg, Germany, that presented a theatrical play from the Assyrian region of Tur Abdin (Tor) in southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border.
