Dün gece esyrim içinde . . . Last Night I dreamt of . . . Turkish Songs of Protest

"Last night I dreamt . . ." said Marash Girl the next morning . . .  the morning after the concert of "Turkish Protest Songs" presented in Gasson Hall at Boston College  . . . "Or I thought I was dreaming . . . I understood the accent, the pronunciation, most of the words . . . It was like going back in time, to when my grandmothers would be talking to me . . . my Armenian grandmothers -- Yepros from Marash, Yester from Aintab."

From the back of the room came a haunting chant, an ancient melody - -  a beautiful young woman walking down the center aisle, singing a devotional song of the Bektaşi dervishes.

The Dunya Ensemble sings of a deceitful world (Yalan Dunya) --  authority and myth -- sex, religion and tradition --  wine and music.

Here are the lyrics to a particularly amusing piece -- Bektaşi Fıkrası. [A fıkra is a story with a moral, often comic.  It offers the opportunity for satire and is a favorite Bektaşi form]

"Dostlarının baskılaruna dayanamayan Baba Erenler, camiye gitmiş, hocanın vaazıni dinliyordu.  Hoca, içkinin kötülüğünü anlaimak için aklına ne geliyorsa söyüyordu.  Bir ara şöyle dedi:  "Bir eşeğin önüne, bir kova su ile bir kova şarap koysanız, hangisin içer?  Elbette ki su içer.  Peki eşek niçin şarabı içmez?"  Bektaşi dayanamayiıp seslendi:  "Neden olacak . . . eşekliğinden . . . "

"Pressured by his friends, a Bektaşi Master had reluctantly gone to a mosque and was listening to the sermon.  The imam was going on and on about how bad it was to consume alcohol.  At one point he said, "If you put a bucket of water and a bucket of wine in front of a donkey, which one will it drink? Of course, the water.  Well, why won't the donkey drink the wine?"  The Bektaşi couldn't resist any longer and said:  "Why, because he is an eshek . . .  էշ… in plain English, a jackass!"

The Dünya Ensemble -- Beth Bahia Cohen (Yayli bowed tanbur /violin), Borcu Güleç (voice), Robert Labaree (çeng), George Lernis (percussion), Mehmet Ali Sanhkol (voice, oud, neg, saz) -- carried the audience back in time and space -- a journey never to be forgotten.