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AUTUMN LEAVES XXXVII
November 4-5, 2022

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Ahmet Lüleci

A native of Turkey, Ahmet is an accomplished choreographer, dance teacher and performer as well as a researcher of Anatolian culture. He is currently the artistic director of the Boston based Collage Dance Ensemble, which allows him to further his goal of making folk dance and music accessible to a wider audience. 

He is the winner of Crash Art's "Dance Straight Up! 2004 and 2006", "Ten's the limit 2005" and Boston Dance Umbrella's "Boston Moves 2001" awards for choreography. His choreography set for Budlet dance company won the Gold medal at "Hong Kong open Dance Competition 2004". He was also recently presented with the 2002 Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts & Humanities by ATAA (the Assembly of Turkish American Associations. His company Collage has won the fifth place at the world dance competition in year 2003.

Since arriving in North America in 1985, he has taught many workshops and camps throughout the United States as well as Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Holland, England, Switzerland, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Norway, Italy, Spain and Australia. He has set innumerable suites of dances for the stage working with dance organizations around the world. 

Some of the notable performing ensembles with whom he has worked include AMAN of Los Angeles, BYU dancers of Provo, BUDLET of Hong Kong, LES SORTILEGES of Montreal, and VINOK of Edmonton. In his native Turkey, he choreographed for HOYTUR and TURHOY of Ankara, ANADOLU UNIVERSITESI of Eskisehir. In 1991 Ahmet joined the Artistic Staff of AMAN as resident choreographer. 

From 1974 to 1985, he taught in several excellent ensembles in Ankara, Istanbul, Eskisehir and Bursa. For nearly five years prior to his departure for north America in 1985, Ahmet also served as Director of Dances for HOY-TUR, long considered Turkey's leading folk dance association. Since the age of eight he has danced with numerous school ensembles and private associations, many of which won outstanding awards in city-wide and National-International competitions. Between 1973 and 2003 he participated in International dance festivals and competitions throughout western and eastern Europe. In addition, Ahmet and his ensembles appeared in more than 60 programs broadcast nationally in countries such as Turkey, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, USA, Canada, Brazil and Germany. 

His college major was music, specializing in voice. Just as his love of folk songs guided him toward academic study of music, Ahmet's fascination with dance led him to conduct scholarly research into the historical, social and cultural background of the costumes and spoon dances from Turkey's Mediterranean coast. His efforts resulted in an exhaustive, 400 page study for which he was awarded First Place in the 1985 national competition in research on the folk dances of Turkey by the Turkish ministry of Youth, Sports, and Education. In 1997 Ahmet completed a second degree in Fine Arts.

He is  an adjudicator at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod held yearly in Wales.

He is currently the Artistic Director of Collage Dance Ensemble and served as an International Art Director of  "Outside the Box" International Arts Festival in 2015, takes place in Boston.

     NIFD is pleased to welcome Ahmet back for his third Autumn Leaves workshop  teaching a variety of Turkish folk dances.

Casa Azafran Global Education’ s Studio South
2195 Nolensville Pike, Suite 3 | Nashville, TN 37211 | Phone: 615-291-4672

We’ll hold our thirty-seventh anniversary Autumn Leaves at Casa Azafran in Nashville, just a quick hop off interstate I-24. Please join us at Autumn Leaves XXXVII for a fabulous weekend of dance, music, fellowship, and FUN! In the interest of cutting down on plastic waste, we encourage participants to bring a reusable water bottle or cup. Thanks.


Parking: If the parking is full in front of Casa Azafran on Friday night, there is a back parking lot. Access to it is on Nolensville Road, just past Casa Azafran if you are traveling towards downtown (North). There is a driveway on the left, just past the building and before the sign that reads Park at Melrose Place. I am told the back lot is well lit and safe. If that lot is full, there is additional parking on Nolensville road going away from town (South) on the same side of Nolensville as Casa Azafran. It is a little grassy lot, just past Payless Auto Sales, we are advised to pull all the way in and around to face out at the front of the lot.

Below is a map to the dance site:

Schedule and Fees:

Cost: Registration for all sessions and dance party: $70 ($80 if paid after Oct.7)
Individual Sessions are prorated as follows:
Session I, $20; Session II, $30; Session III, $30; Dance Party, $10
We will make two options available for purchase: either a video DVD or MP4 video download  of the review.

Ahmet may also bring some of his own videos for purchase.

To pay for registration, you can do so either by our PayPal link (near the bottom of the page) or by clicking on the PDF registration file and printing out and mailing the registration form.

PDF registration form  (click below to open or download the forms, which include our Covid recommendations):

PDF FRONT SIDE
PDF BACK SIDE



Send your check payable to "NIFD" or "Nashville International Folk Dancers" and the above PDF registration form (or equivalent info) to:

Kate Croy
PO Box 148784
Nashville, TN 37214


Autumn Leaves XXXVII Schedule
(Times below are Central Daylight Time)

Friday, November 4
7:00pm - 8:00pm Registration & Request Dancing
8:00pm - 9:30pm Session 1: Teaching ($20 if you are a walk-in)
9:30pm - 10:30pm Extra Request Dancing

Saturday, November 5
9:15am - 11:45am Session II: Teaching ($30 if you are a walk-in)
11:45am - 1:45pm Lunch Break (On your own)
1:45pm - 4:30pm Session III: Dance review session and possibly more dances ($30 if you are a walk-in)
4:30pm - 7:30pm Dinner Break (On your own)
7:30pm - 10:30pm Dance Party ($10 if you are a walk-in) with live music from Tantsova Grupa

 

Note: This year there is no Sunday session, as the review will be done on Saturday afternoon

Also: Full-time students with IDs pay half price
COVID protocols: masking and updated vaccinations are strongly encouraged but not required to attend
(see
PDF BACK SIDE for COVID policy details)

 


Requesting Dances for Saturday night dance party: We have around 700 dances in our MP3 collection with which to play your requests. If you have a particular favorite request dance, consider checking our updated dance list at the following link: NIFD Playlist. If you don't see it there, we probably don't have it, so please bring a CD or MP3 of your request and we will be glad to play it and also add it to our collection.

Nearby Hotels
Nearby Restaurants
Past Autumn Leaves Teachers


Contact information:

For more information, call Kate Croy at 615-359-2251 or email NIFD at nifddance@gmail.com

 

 

For those who would prefer to pay online, the following Paypal link is provided for the registration payment.
(Please note there is a 3% processing fee to pay online using Paypal.)


REGISTRATION BY OCT. 7 - $70
REGISTRATION AFTER OCT. 7 - $80

 

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