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©  Laura Gauch Muhammed Kaltuk was born and raised in a conservative Turkish family in Switzerland. After completing his secondary education, he studied medicine and then, at the age of 25, enrolled at the Zurich School of Contemporary and Urban Stage Dance to pursue his passion and dream of a professional career in dance. After making a name for himself in the Swiss hip-hop scene and at major international competitions such as World of Dance, Kaltuk has worked with companies, institutions and festivals such as Theater Basel, Dampfzentrale Bern, Kaserne Basel, Tanzhaus Zurich, Theater Luzern, Theater St. Gallen, Gauthier Dance Company (COLORS Festival), Theater der Jungen Welt Leipzig, Theater Plauen/Zwickau and Breakthrough Festival Zurich. In 2017, Kaltuk founded and became artistic director of Company MEK, which oscillates between hip hop and contemporary dance, cultural and dance traditions, and known and new methods.  Kaltuk creates his works by composing and designing wi...

What is the essence of performance in your opinion?  As a dancer, I always try to present physicality to the audience.  Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How?  I believe that dance transcends language and is a way for people to interact.  When you are working on a piece, what sources inspire you? Do dreams play a role in your works?  I get my inspiration from everyday real life. The music, novels, and movies I listen to on a daily basis are also a big influence.  When do you decide to give a title to a work you are working on if it already does not have one?  I always start my work by deciding on a title. The title suggests to me the direction in which the work should go.  Are there any artist or person whom you think influenced your art most? And if there is such an artist or person, who?  I was heavily influenced by old punk rock bands. Their spirit and attitude of thinking is the source of my activities.  When you con...

What is the essence of performance in your opinion? The performance proposes an existential preposition of trying to find closure in trauma memories using artistic interventions. An attempt at a ritual ‘Going back to forget’. Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How?   Yes. I believe that a theatrical space has the power to move mountains and touch the viewers in that space. But it also has the power to shift thoughts on a micro level, to charge the experience in the moment with something unfathomable. When you are working on a piece, what sources inspire you? Do dreams play a role in your works?   Dreams haven't played any roles in my works and inspirations so far. My works are grounded in long research into a particular subject matter, an issue, working with a certain community of people and their skill sets. As a performance maker who is interested in notions of documentary theatre and social practice, inspiration, ideas and forms emerge from the people I work...

©Kenneth Morton  Celebrating its 5th anniversary this year, the Istanbul Fringe Festival, which took place between 16th - 23rd September, presented innovative and alternative shows in theatre, dance and performance from Turkey and around the world, as well as workshops and panels.  This week's guest is The How Theatre, an international ensemble of movement artists, actors and musicians based in New York. The How's mission is to create a space where audiences and artists can be challenged by a variety of perspectives, forms and stories. The company members believe in taking the emotional warmth of the world and manifesting it in physical form, breaking convention. Experimenting theatrically and involving musicians in their work, The How Theatre presented My Favorite Person at the festival, a two-person movement theatre piece that explores the dynamics of relationships between men and women using space, form and sound. Now it's time for our interview with the its director, P...