Birin Çalıkoğlu conducted her oral history interview with the dancer Mihran Tomasyan while she was a student at the Sabancı University Cultural Studies M.A. Program. During the interview, Birin’s questions center on Mihran’s perception of Armenian identity as a dancer, and the ways he dealt through dance with the categorization that he was invariably exposed to.
Birin recounts: “Mihran is against luxury consumption and overconsumption; he has adopted a worldview which is concerned about the world and ecology, and lives his life accordingly. He likes to share with others, to live in large groups. He is a pacifist. He complains that only twenty people show up at demonstrations of conscientious objectors. He is an activist but I don’t think he is judgmental. He does not put on a performance; his sincerity never intersects with rudeness.”
Mihran: “Umm, I like the story when she was very little, when she was six years old, they put her on stage in Çatalca, since she was good in reading poems. They make her read the Turkish national anthem on April 23rd, wrapped in the Turkish flag, and, umm, at that time, a big… not the chief of the Turkish Armed Forces, but some people from the army come to Çatalca, high-ranking Pashas and so on. To the Republic Day – no, I mean, the celebration of the 23rd of April, and my grandmother sings –reads her poem on stage. At that moment, the Pasha asked the principal, ‘What is the name of this girl, she reads poems very well”, and so on. They said ‘Mari’, and he said ‘But Mari is an Armenian name’, they said ‘yes’. ‘Couldn’t you find,’ the Pasha stopped the ceremony, he stood up and shouted, ‘Couldn’t you find someone of Turkish descent, how could you make an infidel read our national anthem’. So, my grandmother took the Turkish flag, threw it down and left. She always says, ‘I took the flag, threw it down, and left the room stepping on it’ (in this part, Mihran imitates the excitement of his grandmother), she always tells this story with pride. Then they begged her to come back to the stage. They sent the Pasha, they did not tell him. Really, they hastily took the Pasha out, then she came in and read her poem. My grandmother has many stories like this.”
