THE GUARDIAN: With inflation at more than 100%, and a ruling party hostile to Istanbul’s vibrant nightlife culture, performers and bar owners are facing severe struggles
It’s 11pm at a rooftop restaurant overlooking Istanbul and the patrons are ready to party. In a corner, neon lights illuminate a DJ pumping Turkish pop music to long tables of patrons increasingly loose on raki, Turkey’s aniseed-flavoured national drink. Some have already got out of their chairs to dance, when suddenly the music shifts: the bellydancers have arrived.
A male bellydancer in a pink crop top dances, followed by a blond bellydancer in a rhinestone bra, and then Aslı Can, who enters the room in a storm of high kicks and hair flips.
It’s a typical meyhane night – the name for a traditional restaurant where people spend hours drinking listening to music and watching bellydancing, a staple of Turkish social life for centuries.
As the trio move between the different tables, jostling and wiggling with patrons, they begin their tricks – Can at one point does a full backbend over a table as she dances. Within half an hour, her top is stuffed full of 100 lira notes. » | Ruth Michaelson and Deniz Barış Narlı. Photography by Bradley Secker for the Guardian | Wednesday, July 5, 2023
