Village
shows known as “villager theatre” are ceremonial plays performed to celebrate
the new year and for wealth and health under the name of “making play” “performing
a play” on certain days of the year. These plays are performed in the rooms
in winter as well as in open spaces. These plays which have been inherited
from primitive societies were plays that were consciously performed for a
productive life and for expressing the gratitude to supernatural forces to
god or to gods. These plays whose bases are different believes and myths have
the traces of old Anatolian civilizations, of cultural elements that our people
living in Anatolia have brought from Middle East and the traces of a cultural
synthesis of Islamic elements that have been combined with other elements
after the acceptance of Islam.
These shows are
examples of a primitive theatre. These are functions in social and religious
aspects rather than the art aspect.
These shows are
formed of plays in which daily lives (tinner, barber, ploughing etc.) in which
the animals (camel, bear, fox, eagle etc.) are imitated and the plays which
are performed for a change of seasons, years and plays which are performed
for wealth and fertility (collecting sheep taxes, ceremonies of adding a ram,
jamel play etc.) and plays to make the rain fall (rain charm bride).
Jamel Play:
is played on the first day when the seed is thrown into the soil.
Adding a ram:
is controlling the period of bringing forth young of the animals’ babies,
since they are vulnerable to cold and hunger in winter. This is kind of a
season celebration.
Face of the
camel, face of the sheep: is played when the baby in the womb of the animal
is beginning to grow feathers.