Köçeks
Let's talk about the Köçek (Köçekler in plural) The köçek was a very handsome young male slave rakkas, or dancer, who usually cross-dressed in feminine attire, and was employed as an entertainer.
A köçek would begin training around the age of seven or eight and would be considered accomplished after about six years of study and practice. They were recruited from among the ranks of the non-Muslim subjects of the empire, such as Jews, Romani, Greeks.
The dances, collectively known as köçek oyunu, blended Arab, Greek and Assyrian elements (Karsilamas dance and Kaşık Havası dance). They performed to a particular genre of music known as köçekçe, which was performed in the form of suites in a given melody which had a mix of Sufi, Balkan and classical Anatolian influence. The occasions of their performances were wedding or circumcision celebrations, feasts and festivals, as well as the pleasure of the sultans and the aristocracy. The youths, often wearing heavy makeup, would curl their hair and wear it in long tresses under a small black or red velvet hat decorated with coins, jewels and gold. Their usual garb consisted of a tiny red embroidered velvet jacket with a gold-embroidered silk shirt, shalvar, a long skirt and a gilt belt, knotted at the back. They were said to be "sensuous, attractive, effeminate", and their dancing "sexually provocative". Dancers minced and gyrated their hips in slow vertical and horizontal figure eights, rhythmically snapping their fingers and making suggestive gestures. Often acrobatics, tumbling and mock wrestling were part of the act. The köçeks were sexually exploited, often by the highest bidder. As of 1805, there were approximately 600 köçek dancers working in the taverns of the Ottoman capital. They were outlawed in 1837 due to fighting among audience members over the dancers.
With the suppression of harem culture under Sultan Abdulaziz (1861–1876) and Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876–1908), köçek dance and music lost the support of its imperial patrons and gradually disappeared. Köçeks were much more sought after than the çengi ("belly dancers"), their female counterparts. Some youths were known to have been killed by the çengi, who were extremely jealous of men's attention toward the boys. . #photography
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Photos: Ottoman Empire, late 19th century