Erdinç Dinçer

Erdinç Dinçer — Biography

Erdinç Dinçer was born on 25 August 1935 in İzmir and became one of the pioneers of pantomime in Turkey, working as a mime artist, actor and writer. In 1951 he entered the Ankara State Conservatory, first studying conducting and composition, where Ahmet Adnan Saygun taught him, and then moving to the wind instruments department; the poet Cahit Külebi was his literature teacher. After taking lessons from the French mime Theo Lesoualche, who visited Turkey in 1956, he left the conservatory and went back to İzmir, where he played first oboe in the İzmir State Symphony Orchestra and also studied theatre and singing for two years at the city's conservatory.

Between 1961 and 1965 he studied in Paris at Jacques Lecoq's school, worked on mime with Marcel Marceau and Etienne Decroux, and held a special scholarship from the French government. He represented Turkey with a Nasreddin Hoca character in a film made for UNESCO. Back in Turkey he performed in classical and modern ballet at the İzmir State Opera and Ballet, taught mime at Hacettepe University and worked as an artist of the State Theatres.

He wrote his own pantomime pieces, among them Sessizliğin Sesi, Konuşan Vücutlar and Sıradışı Öyküler. He won a gold medal at the international monodrama and pantomime festival in Belgrade in 1975, the Esperia first prize for best play in Italy in 1978 for Sessizliğin Sesi, and a world first place at a pantomime festival in Moldova in 1999. He died on 20 August 2013.