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Köçek - Culture

Köçek - Culture: Encyclopedia II - Köçek - Culture

A köçek would begin training around the age of seven or eight, and would be considered accomplished after about six years of study and practice. A dancer's career would last as long as he was beardless and retained his youthful appearance. Dancers would get married when they were around 25 or 30, and then could become organizers of a new köçek troop. Köçeks were organized into companies known as kol. Twelve such companies were counted in the mid-1600's, each c ...

Köçek: Encyclopedia II - Köçek - Culture

Köçek - Culture

A köçek would begin training around the age of seven or eight, and would be considered accomplished after about six years of study and practice. A dancer's career would last as long as he was beardless and retained his youthful appearance. Dancers would get married when they were around 25 or 30, and then could become organizers of a new köçek troop. Köçeks were organized into companies known as kol. Twelve such companies were counted in the mid-1600's, each company averaging about 250 dancers.

Their erotic dances, collectively known as köçek oyunu, blended Arab, Greek, Assyrian and Kurdish elements. They were performed to a particular genre of music known as köçekce, which was performed in the form of suites in a given melody. It too was a mix of Sufi, Balkan and classical Anatolian influences, some of which survives in popular Turkish music today. The accompaniment included various percussion instruments, such as the davul-köçek, a large drum of Armenian origin, one side covered with goat skin and the other in sheep skin, producing different tones. The skill of a köçek would be judged not only on his dancing abilities but also on his proficiency with the percussion instruments, especially a type of castagnette known as the çarpare. In later times these were replaced by metal cymbals called zils.

The dancers would be accompanied by an orchestra, featuring four to five each kaba kemence and lauto as principal instruments, used exclusively for köçek suites. There would also be two singers. A köçek dance in the Ottoman harem would involve one or two dozen köçeks, and a large number of musicians. The occasions of their performances were wedding celebrations, circumcision celebrations, feasts, festivals, as well as the pleasure of the sultans and the aristocracy.

The youths, often wearing heavy makeup, would curl their hair and wear it in long tresses under a small black or red velvet hat decorated with coins, jewels and gold. Their usual garb consisted of a tiny red embroidered velvet jacket with a gold-embroidered silk shirt, shalvars (baggy trousers), a long skirt, and a gilt belt, knotted at the back. They were said to be "sensuous, attractive, effeminate," and their dancing "sexually provocative," impersonating female dancers. Dancers minced and gyrated their hips in slow vertical and horizontal figure-8's, rhythmically snapping their fingers and making suggestive gestures. Often, acrobatics, tumbling, and mock wrestling were also part of the act. The köçeks were available sexually, often to the highest bidder, in the passive role. It is presumed that many of them were transgender.

The names and backgrounds of köçeks in Istanbul in the 18th century are well documented. Among the more celebrated köçeks from the end of the 18th century are the Gypsy Benli Ali of Dimetoka (today's Greece); Buyuk (big, older) Afet (born Yorgaki) of Croatian origin, Kucuk (little) Afet (born Kaspar) of Armenian origin, and Pandeli from the Greek Island of Chiros. There were at least fifty köçeks of star stature at the time. The famous ones, like the Gypsy köçek Ismail, would have to be booked weeks or months in advance, at a very high cost.

Western visitors were variously taken with the - for them - unusual sight of pederasty unleashed. One impression is preserved in Don Leon, a poem anonymously written in the voice of Lord Byron:

Here much I saw – and much I mused to see The loosened garb of Eastern luxury. I sought the brothel, where, in maiden guise, The black-eyed boy his trade unblushing plies; Where in lewd dance he acts the scenic show – His supple haunches wriggling to and fro: With looks voluptuous the thought excites, Whilst gazing sit the hoary sybarites: Whilst gentle lute and drowsy tambourine Add to the languor of the monstrous scene. Yes, call it monstrous! but not monstrous, where Close latticed harems hide the timid fair: With mien gallant where pæderasty smirks, And whoredom, felon like, in covert lurks. All this I saw – but saw it not alone – A friend was with me, and I dared not own How much the sight had touched some inward sense, Too much for e’en the closest confidence. (441-8).

In his travels to the Levant, Byron had indeed been present at such a dance as described above. His traveling companion, John Cam Hobhouse, relates in his diary that on Saturday, May 19th, 1810:

This day, went with Byron and a party to the wine houses of Galata. Took pipes, and saw two old and ugly boys, who wrung the sweat off their brows, dance as before, waving their long hair. Also they spread a mat and, putting on a kind of shawl, performed an Alexandrian woman’s dance – much the same, except that they knelt, and, covering each other’s heads, seemed as if kissing. One of Mr Adair’s Janissaries, who talks English and has been in England, was with us. I asked him if these boys would not be hanged in England. “Oh yes, directly. De Turk take and byger dem d’ye see?” For this beastly sight we paid fifty-five piastres, five to the boys each, and five to all fiddlers and singers and performers &c., nor is this dear, I understand. Turk boys are not allowed to dance. Excerpt from Hobhouse's diary

The youths were held in high esteem. Famous poets, such as Fazyl bin Tahir Enderuni, wrote poems, and classical composers, such as the court musician Hammamizade Ismail Dede Efendi (1778-1846), composed köçekces for celebrated koceks. Many Istanbul meyhanes (night-time taverns serving meze, raki or wine) hired köçeks. Before starting their performance, the köçek danced among the spectators, to make them more excited. In the audience, competition for their attention often caused commotions and altercations. Men would go wild, breaking their glasses, shouting themselves voiceless, or fighting and sometimes killing each other vying for the boys' sexual favors. This resulted in suppression of the practice under sultan Sultan Abd-ul-Mejid I. Köçek dances were officially banned in 1856, and many of the boys left the country to practice their profession in Egypt and elsewhere. With the suppression of harem culture under Sultan Abdulaziz (1861-1876) and Sultan Abdulhamid II (1876-1908), köçek dance and music lost the support of its royal patrons, and gradually disappeared.

The other type of rakkas, or male dancer (from raks, "dance") was the tavşan oğlan, "rabbit boy," a young dancer dressed in provocative male clothing: tight pants and a jaunty hat. The non-Muslim tavşan oğlan are thought to have come mainly from the Greek islands in the Aegean and the Sea of Marmara. They performed mainly during Ramadan, working as sakis (wine boys) in the meyhanes otherwise, when not dancing at special occasions.

Köçeks were much more sought after than the çengi, their feminine counterparts. Some youths were known to have been killed by the çengi, who where extremely jealous of men's attention towards the boys.