On Istanbul Dance Festival 2011

Overall - Istanbul Dance Festival aka the Car Park Congress was my favourite non-beach congress of 2011. This was a congress where I loved the music the most, had the best dances and was surrounded by some of my best friends. The experience was also heightened by the fact that I did not have to work all weekend and was able to relax and enjoy myself for the first time in a couple of months. The social dance level was very high, the artists were out in force, inspiring and dancing with everyone, the music had some serious flow to it and the backdrop of Istanbul and its amazing Turkish food made this congress more memorable than any other. Oh, and I got to see a full 1.5 hour Frankie Martinez production. Truly memorable!


The general consensus from the artists appears not to have been as positive as my personal experience, with many disappointed with the organisation, the timing, the venue. It's not clear whether there will be another such event in 2012. From my perspective, that would just elevate the Car Park Congress to the mythical once-in-a-lifetime congresses that stand out in memory as unique moments of joy (e.g. Athens). If it does happen again, I'm not sure I'd go, as I wouldn't want to mess with the memories!

Prices

1. Flights - There are direct flights to Istanbul, the most convenient ones I found left from Stansted, taking off at midnight and landing 4 hours later. As Turkey is two hours ahead, you basically land at 6am and get into town in time for breakfast. This is highly time efficient but not great for checking into hotels, meeting up with friends who went to bed 30 minutes before your arrival or getting a decent night sleep before some serious partying! For reference, my flights cost £162, which was a pretty decent deal.

2. Pass prices - We all got full passes as we wanted to take classes with Frankie and because we managed to get a good group discount. Annoyingly, I can't remember how much it was, but it was cheap enough to make it worthwhile getting a full pass and yet only turn up to about 2 workshops.

3. Hotels - There was no official hotel but lots of mini hotels and apartments for rent in the congress area (near Taksim which is rather like the Piccadilly Circus of Istanbul). My wonderful friend organised everything, such that we paid about €30 (or less, can't remember) per night and were staying in a building where 3 flats were occupied by our friends. Our unit slept three and had a large sitting room area. This proved to be a really decent hangout place between touristic trips into town, dinners and parties.

4. Water - Drink prices were reasonable at the venue and water was available at the makeshift bar (it was in a car park remember!) The food on site however was absolutely awful, not helped by the fact that the weekend weather involved constant torrential rain and that there was nothing available within a ten minute walk.

Venue

1. Floor - As mentioned before, the party was held in a car park. The dance floors were sectioned off by temporary screen walls and the flooring itself was brought in specially for the occasion. Within the makeshift rooms, the floor was clean, even and very very slippery - I wore jazz shoes for two nights to get more stability and bought myself a new pair of heals on day 2, as there was no amount of scratching that would give my old heels sufficient grip to finish a dance in a vertical position. 

2. Number of dance floors - While I only danced in the LA/Mambo room, there was a Cuban/Romantica/Bachata/Kizomba room and a hip hop room as well. There may have been a separate bachata room too, but I never went in it, so am not sure what it played! Not sure about the hip hop room, but the others were pretty busy most of the time. Between the dance floors was an open area, adorned with speed bumps (it was an actual car park remember?) in which you could hear a mess of noise coming from the various dance areas. Luckily though, when dancing, you could only hear the relevant speaker system!

3. Workshops vs. parties - Same venue for everything. 

4. Show seats. The venue was a large congress center that went one story up and 7 stories down. The shows were held in a massive (and I mean massive) auditorium at -2, with plush seats and plunging views. I watched the full Abakua production on Friday (and loved it), half the shows on Saturday (they were running late and I had a nap from about 10pm till midnight and timed my entrance perfectly on Sunday to skip all of them. 

5. Show visibility. Fine. There were still loads of seats when I arrived half way through on Saturday, so I sat up front and had a great view.

6. Workshop visibility. Mini stages only, some of the bigger-names' workshops (e.g. Aldofo, Frankie, African Jet) were very busy such that you couldn't always see. Frankie's workshops were disastrous - people crowding the front like crazy fans - if you weren't on the front row, it was a waste of time. 

7. Workshop organisation. No issues from my perspective.

Crowd

1. Workshops. Decent level, busy classes - Frankie's workshop was packed and people generally seemed quite frustrated by it.

2. Parties - Very international crowd, with maybe 40% (or less?) who were local dancers (but many of them still very good). I think I had one bad dance with a Turkish local all weekend (my only bad dance all weekend mind you). I don't think the Turkish dancers were mingling that much, but everyone else was really open and sociable, easily approachable and in the mood to dance. The parties went on till 7am every morning and we had absolutely no trouble dancing till the very last song!

3. Size - Medium - There were loads of people there, but it was possible to dance with friends and favourites more than once per night, to find and dance with the appropriate person for every song (without much fighting) and to make new discoveries every night as well.

4. After parties - No need. The parties went on until 7am with awesome music all the way through. 

Line-up

1. Quality of teaching - High. Great line-up. I personally really enjoyed a styling class with Ana Masacote, but didn't spend much time doing workshops as I wanted to see the city and was enjoying hanging out in shisha bars with friends instead.

2. Choice of workshops - 4 per hour - always a decent salsa option available.

3. Number of shows - About 1.5 hours per night. Quite frankly too many, which is why skipping half of them and sleeping instead was a great idea! 

4. Artists on the dance floor. Half the floor was a Frankie circle, but most of the artists were out and dancing every night - Magna and Terry were tireless as usual. The African Jet boys put up a good effort as did Neeraj, in between running and hiding from the usual flocks and women. Even the Latin Soul Dancers, the Baila Society peeps and the Cobo Brothers came out, albeit for a shorter period of time. 

5. DJs. Fabrizio Zorro (Milan), Willy (NL), Cisko (Belgium), Latin Master (NL) and a host of others. Not one of them played a bad set. The flow was epic - you could dance every song and never stop because they changed the pace such that you could just keep on dancing the whole night through. Complete and utter joy.

6. Bands. No band, but the DJs did such a great job, that it honestly did not matter.

Location

1. Central location? The venue was a conference center about 15 minutes walk from Taksim. The entrance hall was lovely, but the congress was held at level -7 in a car park. I'm told that they had been scheduled to have a proper ballroom higher up in the building, but that a last minute issue with the venue relegated them to the car park level. Lots of people were put out by this, but honestly, it was part of the charm of the congress!

2. Distance from the airport - About 30 minutes in a taxi or bus. Taxis aren't really worth the money unless you share and then it's still cheaper to take the shuttle to and from Taksim. It's probably worth mentioning that Istanbul is so large you practically need to give your taxi driver directions to anywhere that isn't a major landmark. And you'll be expected to pay for the time that they spend driving around looking lost too!

3. Time to London - Approximately 4.5 hours on a direct flight.

4. Number of days off work. 2 days required. Given flight times to Turkey, it's not really possible to work on Friday without skipping the Friday night party (not worth doing given the quality of the dancing!)

For more information, check out the website here: http://www.istanbuldancefestival.org/web/default.asp