Culture of Northern Cyprus
Turkish Cypriot cities and towns regularly organize festivals that include performances of local and international singers and bands.
[2] Rock and pop music are popular with the public in Northern Cyprus, important singers and bands include SOS and Fikri Karayel.
Among the türküs, some important ones are "Dillirga", "Kebapçıların şişi" ("the skewers of the kebab makers") and "Portakal atışalım" ("let's throw each other oranges").
[6] Whilst Kamran Aziz mostly composed non-folkloric pieces, many of her compositions are now considered to be part of the Turkish Cypriot folk music canon.
The Northern Cyprus State Symphony Orchestra was established in 1975, but the efforts to develop and promote it never met with success.
[11] North Nicosia has its own Lefkoşa Municipal Orchestra[12] that performs at open spaces, such as parks and squares, and is also home to the annual Walled City Jazz Festival.
[14] Turkish Cypriot culture also incorporates a great diversity of folk dances with various influences, including different versions of karsilamas, çiftetelli and zeybek.
Internationally renowned musicals and dance shows are performed in front of crowded audiences in the Atatürk Culture and Congress Center.
During this period, poets such as Fikret Demirağ, who followed a writing style in line with Turkey, developed a movement of abstract poetry in Cyprus.
This was followed by an increased adoption of the Mediterranean identity in the 1980s, accompanied by the effects of the liberalization of the Turkish Cypriot society, as reflected in the feminist elements, of which a particular example is Neriman Cahit.
[29][33][34] Neşe Yaşın mainly writes in Turkish although a considerable number of her works of prose have been translated into Greek and English.
In 2002 her novel Secret History of Sad Girls was banned in the TRNC and Turkey and she received multiple threats from Turkish nationalists.
[35][36] Urkiye Mine Balman has written in a wide variety genres, but her works are mostly romantic poems describing sometimes a lonesome village girl or country life and long-distance romances.
However, they usually depict themes encountered in daily lives, such as love and ambition and were used to pass on traditional concepts regarding roles in the family, dynamics of relationships and conflicts that arise due to behavior to the children.
Often, fairy tales are very typical with their use of language, as they utilize certain phrases and patterns to denote the beginning and the end of the story, as well as certain actions.
[40] Northern Cyprus has fourteen television channels, often accompanied by radio stations owned by the same company.
[42] BRT is also the oldest Turkish Cypriot TV channel; it was established as a radio station in 1963, and launched its first television broadcast in 1976.
A co-production of Northern Cyprus, Turkey, Britain and the Netherlands, Kod Adı Venüs[46] (Code Name Venus) was shown in the Cannes Film Festival in 2012.
The film tells the story of eleven Turkish Cypriot workers who left their homes in a bus in 1964 that never came back.
[53] A traditionally important and symbolic handicraft in the Turkish Cypriot culture is the manufacture of chairs from reeds and straws.
[54] Traditional handicrafts in Cyprus are commonly taught and practiced by women's village courses, organized by the government and municipalities, and exhibited at cultural centers.
Water sports such as windsurfing, jetskiing, waterskiing and sailing are also available at beaches throughout the coastline of Northern Cyprus.
Cyprus Theater Festival, organised by the Nicosia Turkish Municipality is a large organization with institutions from Turkey participating as well.
[62][63] The origins of Turkish Cypriot theater lie in Karagöz and Hacivat, a shadow play that was popularized in the island as a form of entertainment during the Ottoman era.
[64] After the 1840s, as the Ottoman Empire started modernizing, theater with greater European elements met with the Turkish Cypriot public.
[65] This was followed by a proliferation of theatrical activity in the Turkish Cypriot community as local plays were written and staged and theatrical companies from Turkey took the stage in Cyprus by the 1920s, all the major towns in Cyprus had Turkish Cypriot plays that were performed regularly.
