![\"Sema](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art50\/graphics50\/SemaYildiz.jpg\")
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While watching Sema Yildiz<\/span> walk straight-backed into a restaurant, makeup immaculate and her hip-length black hair draped over one shoulder, anyone would wonder \u201cis that woman a celebrity?\u201d In the world of Turkish dance, the answer is yes \u2013 but you don\u2019t need to know her name to guess that she\u2019s a star. <\/p>\n I spoke with Sema in Toronto during the International Bellydance Conference of Canada<\/a><\/span>, in April 2010. She was compelling every time she danced, but my favourite moment was watching her at the IBCC afterparty, high heels and slim white trousers no obstacle to her spontaneous, effortless floorwork. <\/p>\n Interviewing Sema in her hotel room before the party proved difficult as her English is limited and, she explained, the person who was to be her translator during the IBCC had fallen ill. She had her laptop with her though, and periodically rushed to it to use its Turkish-English dictionary when communications broke down. She also had some handwritten notes translated beautifully by one of her students back home. She was hospitable, offering us Turkish bread, coffee and gifts while we talked and she readied herself for the restaurant. <\/p>\n Sema (it\u2019s a stage name, but even her family use it now; Yildiz means star) was born in Istanbul, the only daughter in a family of five children. Her father, originally from the Balkans, was a farmer. She grew up in a house adjoining an open air cinema. From the beginning Sema was inspired and enthralled by dance. \u201cI would glue pieces of glass to my fingers with tree sap so that I would be able to make the sound of zills. I loved to dance and people would ask me to dance for them at parties. I think I knew even as a child that I had a gift of dance.\u201d <\/p>\n She was fortunate, she says, to grow up in a Roma (Gypsy) community rich in dance and music \u2013 the Fatih district, which houses the Sulukule, famous for its entertainment and considered the oldest Roma settlement in the world.<\/p>\n Her schoolmates were mostly Roma musicians\u2019 children. As a result, her skill at Roma-styled dancing developed very early. She believes everyone can learn to dance but says Roma dance is particularly difficult because only Roma people can incorporate the real Gypsy feeling. Today she is involved in efforts to help Sulukule Roma who have been displaced by an urban gentrification project, which severely threatens their way of life. <\/p>\n Sema thinks of herself as a Turkish Oriental dancer influenced by Gypsy dance. Other early influences were the Indian movies popular in Turkey during the 1960s. She won a dance competition in the late 1960s and began dancing professionally soon afterwards. <\/p>\n \u201cI found myself exploring the world of belly dance in many places \u2013 performing in casinos, hotels, movies, television, restaurants and even the Topkapi Palace,\u201d she says. \u201cWhile pursuing a dance career is full of challenges, I always knew I was a dancer and wanted to dance. It was my soul. Dancing was an easy career choice for me.\u201d <\/p>\n Eva Cernik<\/a><\/span>, who interviewed Sema for Habibi<\/em> magazine<\/a> in 1997, writes that Sema began her solo dance career at the Istanbul Keravanserai Dinner Club<\/span>, her \u201chome base\u201d for 23 years, also performing at Bebek Maksim<\/span>, Galata Kulesi <\/span>(Tower), and Maksim<\/span> of Taksim Square – all the most sophisticated and fashionable clubs of the 1970s and 1980s. She travelled widely, spending nine years in Europe, where she met and married a Belgian man. While Sema later returned to Istanbul, she still travels on her Belgian passport because, she says, it is not so easy to travel on a Turkish one. <\/p>\n\n
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