Carla Monnich plays davul and zils for Turku. She is also Turku's principal dancer. Her background in dance includes two years of private study in Bharata Natyam classical Indian dance with Mahalakshmi Rao, and 17 years of study in various styles originating along the Romani people's paths from India to Spain. The resulting mix produces fiery and ecstatic improvisations, and dazzling group choreographies. She has traveled extensively, gathering dance resources to share with her students. She is also a textile artist, creating Turkic style weavings to be worn as belts and digitally restoring ancient Central Asian textiles for new printed fabric.

Carla has taught dance for over 20 years, specializing in helping dancers to learn to improvise, and to incorporate the playing of the zils into their dance. She believes that every woman can benefit from dance instruction; and she delights in guiding her students to joyous experiences learning to flow without thought. She also feels that every dancer has an individual style that may be brought out with proper instruction. Here is her philosophy of improvisational dance. She has released an instructional CD Rom that teaches zil technique. Information on that project can be found here.  She has just launced a site entitled "Ectastic Dance" which teaches about improvisation. Carla also developed and maintains this website, as well as TurkuGuide.com, a travel guide to Istanbul .

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