Ekin Akbaş Arpacı

ABOUT

Ekin Akbaş Arpacı examines the relationship between the body and space not merely as a physical existence, but as a socially constructed space. Her work focuses on gendered perceptions of space, particularly those shaped through the female body; visible and invisible boundaries; and the behavioral codes these boundaries produce. In investigating how the body is positioned, directed, and disciplined within space, she rethinks movement not only as a form of expression but also as a space of resistance.

In her practice, movement transcends aesthetic production, transforming into a language that carries memory, culture, and power relations. By making visible the effects of constructed social roles on the body, the artist removes space from being a passive ground; she transforms it into a living structure, reconstructed through movement.

Her education both in Turkey and abroad, and her teaching practice in different geographical locations, have given the artist a multi-layered approach. Her courses at Boğaziçi University and Istanbul University intersect her pedagogical production with the academic field; the methods she has developed open up an experiential learning space that redefines the relationship between body and movement.

Ekin Akbaş Arpacı, who has been working as an instructor, choreographer, and artistic director since 2007, created a pioneering model in Turkey in 2012 with her Adult Ballet program, transforming established assumptions about the adult body. This approach removes the body from being a space where it is “too late to start”; it makes every body the subject of movement. The artist, who also translates her choreographic productions into visual language through short dance films, deepens her research on the female body within a new spatiality through the camera. Thus, she establishes a multi-layered space of expression that moves between stage, studio, screen, and public space.

With the Production Workshop she founded in 2017 and the subsequent opening of a second branch, she has created not just a studio, but a space where performance, research, and collective production intersect, extending her work to stages, studios, and various venues. With the dance company she founded in 2024, she continues to explore the relationship between body and space in multiple contexts, particularly through site-specific performances and video productions.

In 2025, she founded the Ekin Akbaş Ballet and Dance School, transforming this approach into a more inclusive structure. While maintaining its focus on adult ballet, it also incorporates children’s and youth ballet and dance programs, creating a space where individuals of all ages can establish a sustainable relationship with dance. Against the established understanding in Turkey that ballet education is largely limited to childhood, this model, centering on adulthood, offers a free and non-judgmental space where children can continue this practice throughout their lives without having to interrupt it.

Ekin Akbaş Arpacı’s practice treats the body not merely as a moving entity, but as a thinking, remembering, resisting, and reconstructing subject.