FR. 31.7.2026 – Annahof- 20:00 h

MERAL POLAT

NETHERLANDS – ANATOLIA

Meral Polat is a Dutch-Kurdish singer, actress and theater maker who combines Anatolian folk music, Kurdish poetry, blues, jazz and improvisational freedom to create her own musical language. Her songs are based on poems by her father, the Kurdish-Alevi poet Ali İhsan Polat, as well as stories of origin, memory, loss and resistant hope. With her quartet, she expands this sound world with additional colors, dynamics and rhythmic depth. Modal melodies, earthy grooves, poetic lyrics and an intense stage presence meet an interplay that mediates between tradition and contemporary energy. In the context of “Waterways”, their songs open up a resonating space between Anatolia, Kurdistan and the European diaspora. The history of a region that has been a transit area, border region and playing field for imperial powers for centuries and in which questions of migration, belonging and awakening continue to have an effect to this day also resonates.

Photo above: Ruth Nije Bijvank