By:Hambersom Aghbashian
Zeynep Tanbay is a Turkish prominent modern Dancer, Choreographer, Teacher and Human Rights activist. She started dance education at the Swan Ballet Studio in Ankara. In 1981, she went to New York and studied at Joffrey Ballet 
School. She continued her training at Alvin Ailey Ballet School, Cleveland Ballet School and San Francisco Ballet School as a scholarship student. In 1983, she began dancing as a soloist dancer, later as a primary soloist dancer at the Minnesota Dance Theatre. After her education at the Martha Graham Dance Company in New York, Tanbay began working as a teacher at the Martha Graham Dance Company. She performed with them in New York, Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Athens and Buenos Aires. In 1995, she performed with the Eliza Monte Dance Company in Turkey for the first time. She returned to Turkey in 1997.
Tanbay founded the “Zeynep Tanbay Dance Project” and performed in the Cemal Resit Rey Concert Hall (2000), the İş Sanat Concert Hall (2001) and at the 18th International Ankara Music Festival. In 2002, she performed as a guest dancer in the 2nd Istanbul International Dance Festival. She participated in the 31st International Istanbul Music Festival (2003), the 1st Bodrum International Ballet Festival (2003) and Stuttgart Festival (2005). Tanbay is the director of Dance Workshop in the Akbank Art, and serves as a dancer and choreographer in the Zeynep Tanbay Dance Project.(1)
On April 25,2011, Bianet.org published an article headlined “We Have to End the Policy of Denial” where it mentioned that “Armenians who were forced to emigration, lost and killed in 1915, were commemorated with flowers and candles at Taksim Square, Istanbul”. Zeynep Tanbay was there , she said “As the official policy to deny this crime continues, the bleeding scar at the hearts of the people of this land deepens”. The prominent modern dancer and human rights activist added “April 24, 1915 marks the start of a disaster that tore the Armenian people from this land where they lived side by side with others since centuries, that left hundreds of thousands dead and subject to all kinds of atrocities for nothing but being Armenians”. She added “Since then, governments and state authorities tried to play down, if not to cover up and legitimize this history. Yet, this lethal exile is clearly a crime against humanity. We have to end denying, now. We have to declare that the heavy crime that’s symbolized by April 24 is our common pain”.(2)
On December 11,2012, Turkish RTV Corp. mentioned that the Turkish embassy in Denmark will open an alternative exhibition at the Royal Library in Copenhagen, where the exhibition “The Armenian Genocide and the Scandinavian Response” opened on November 6 and has amazed the Armenian Diaspora. Zeynep Tanbay with other Turkish Intellectuals sent a letter to Danish authorities saying “Don’t Stand Before Turkey’s Democratization and Confrontation with its History”. The letter mentioned that ” Over one million Ottoman Armenian citizens were forced out of their homes and annihilated in furtherance of an intentional state policy. What exists today is nothing other than the blatant denial of this reality by the Turkish government”.(3)
According to ARMENEWS (February 26, 2014), Zeynep Tanbay with other hundreds of Turk, Armenian and European Intellectuals , politicians, Human Rights activists, Doctors, Professors, community leaders etc., signed a call ” To the Commemoration of Armenian Genocide in Turkey” on April 24,2014.(4)
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1-http://www.turkishculture.org/whoiswho/dance-ballet-opera/zeynep-tanbay-1122.htm
2-http://www.bianet.org/bianet/print/129521-we-have-to-end-the-policy-of-denial
3- http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/The_Armenian_Genocide_and_the_Scandinavian_Response
4- http://recordarmenews.blogspot.com/2014/02/call-to-commemoration-of-armenian.html