В спешке / Motus

Ayaküstü (В спешке) is a four-year project by Burak Bulut Yıldırım that follows unexpected encounters in the everyday life of Istanbul. Ballerinas appear without announcement in the city's metro, on its ferries, in the streets of Galata, and along İstiklal Avenue in Taksim. Ballet, a Western performing art usually confined to indoor stages, meets the street. City and stage, passerby and spectator begin to overlap, and the familiar sense of place and time in the city shifts.

A theatre tells its audience where to look and when: the lights go down, the curtain rises, and attention is agreed in advance. The street gives no such instruction. Each passerby decides alone, in a second or two, whether this is an event, an intrusion, or nothing at all, and that private decision is what the photographs record.

The project's focus lies less on the ballerinas than on the people of Istanbul who witness them. Astonishment, curiosity, and nonchalance cross the faces of passersby, and the photographs hold all three. Set against the city's historic places, the dancers' composure creates an intentional distance between the performance and the street. That distance registers a sense of alienation, while the crowd around them keeps the pace and gestures of the city.

As the dancers leave the stage for the metro, ferries, stations, shops, and alleys, they slip into the ordinary. Carriages, piers, and platforms are built for passing through; people share them for a few minutes and have learned not to look at one another. The dance breaks that quiet agreement, and what usually disappears into the crowd becomes visible for a moment.

В пределах Motus, В спешке measures duration from the other side. The question is less how long a gesture lasts than how long a city's attention lasts before it moves on.

The project was featured in the Turkish daily Radikal under the headline "Kentte bale zarafeti" ("Ballet's grace in the city").