(ANSA) - Milan, October 23 - The Turkey pavilion will
celebrate its last day on Sunday with performances by whirling
dervishes and a display of work from the Ebru art laboratories.
Ebru is a traditional form of Islamic painting, common in
Turkey, in which a motif is painted on a water surface and then
transferred to paper to obtain a "marble" effect.
Visitors can also enjoy a glass-blowing laboratory,
workshops about food, and folkloric dance performances from the
Black Sea, Anatolia and Thrace regions of Turkey.
Also planned is a concert of ney players. The ney is a
traditional Turkish cane flute.
The dervishes are Sufi Muslim monks who take part in an
ancient dance rite to reach religious ecstasy, whirling speedily
anti-clockwise until they reach a dazzling 30 spins a minute.
This is usually done during a Sema ceremony, which UNESCO
proclaimed one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible
Heritage of Humanity in 2005.
As many as four million visitors have gone to the Turkey
pavilion, the fifth largest at Expo.
The Turkish pavilion's concept is linked to the
pomegranate, a symbol of the agricultural richness of Turkey and
of "diversity in unity".