The Turkish Folk Dance Group has been around on and off since 1990s. After a recent pause, in 2004, the Group restarted practicing regularly at the UMKC University Center under the leadership of Emru Erten. It also meets for rehearsal at CMSU (Warrensburg, MO) and KU (Lawrence, KS) on occasion, and performs at international festivals at these colleges and at the Kansas City Ethnic Enrichment Festival every August. It has recently also performed at two other festivals: one in Saint Louis in July 2005, and one in Kansas City River Market in January 2006.

Esra Alsancaklı, Batur and Yasemin Ersoy, Saliha Francis, Cihan Kocadere, Bengi Oğuz, Lale Özer, Ersin Özharat, Barış Şahin, Marilyn Scheer, Lisa Telgemeier, and Serdar Tunçten are the active dancers currently. Gone back to Turkey are Fikret Çankaya, Neslihan Erten, İlker Eser, Simge Sofuoğlu, Arzu Taşköy, and Bahar Yıldız.

For more information, contact Emru at eerten at venturafoods dot com.