Choreographer / Performance Artist / Educator / Activist
Dicle Doğan is an award-winning choreographer, performance artist, educator, and activist working in the fields of contemporary dance and theater. She was born in Istanbul and graduated from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University State Conservatory, Department of Contemporary Dance.
She began her artistic career in 2013 at the Istanbul State Theaters, producing work both as an actress and choreographer. Over time, she entered a deep process of research into the presence of movement on stage. Since 2016, she has focused on movement-based acting, collaborating with both institutional and independent theater groups. As an educator, she has facilitated numerous workshops and programs in Turkey and abroad.
In 2015, she began long-distance walking journeys, which became a turning point in her artistic approach. Covering more than 5000 kilometers on foot, these walks allowed her to develop a new performative language based on physical endurance, repetitive movement, and meditative connection with space. She treats walking as both a research method and a form of performance, exploring the body as an archive and a site of narrative.
Confronting the environmental destruction she witnessed during her walks led her to climate activism. Eventually, she moved from the city to the countryside, embracing a sustainable way of living. Growing her own food and living in harmony with nature, she developed a creative practice that reflects this experience. Today, she uses the body not only as an aesthetic tool but as a means of remembering and reconnecting with nature.
“For me, walking is not just a way to move from one place to another; it became a way to distance myself from imposed definitions, labels, and societal roles,” she says. During her long walks, she encountered the limits of her body, the noise of the mind, and the deeply rooted teachings of society. This process led her to form a more sincere connection with both nature and herself.
Over time, this inner transformation became central to her artistic production. In her works, she often explores dualities — investigating themes such as gender roles, the notion of the “acceptable body,” belonging, identity, and resistance through physical research. Challenging societal norms, making bodily memory visible, and opening space for alternative modes of existence have become the driving forces of her art.
Living in the rural countryside, she has developed a practice that reunites the body with nature. Sustainability is not only a way of living but also an essential component of her artistic process. The cycles, silence, and patience of nature directly influence her movement, stage presence, and pedagogical approach. Her experiences of self-sufficiency and reliance on natural resources have given her not only new ways of surviving but also new aesthetic and social perspectives.
Her artistic work traces both personal journeys and processes of social transformation. Through her performances, she questions the meaning of the body, social roles, and identity, aiming to create experiences that invite audiences on physical and intellectual journeys. Focusing on the transformative power of bodily memory, she presents diverse ways of being and existing in the world.
For Doğan, art is a tool for remembering what has been forgotten, making the repressed visible, and revealing that other ways of living are possible. The body is both the carrier and the subject of this narrative. Her artistic practice, shaped by the teachings of rural life and the language of nature, calls for a sustainable, conscious, and socially transformative future.
For many years, she has collaborated with various NGOs, particularly as an educator and facilitator in projects working with disadvantaged communities. Her aim is to create social change through the power of art.
She currently lives in rural Portugal, where she continues her artistic and social work on an international scale. Her works have been presented at international festivals in Italy, France, and Portugal.