Kanto is a stage performance that became significantly popular in 19th-century Istanbul. Kanto can be defined as an actress singing and dancing on stage. At the end of the 1800s, kanto was performed in tulûat [improvisational] theaters and music halls in Istanbul’s Galata, Direklerarası, and Kadıköy districts. At the end of the 19th century, kanto singers mostly involved actresses dancing and singing on stage accompanied by music composed of Western instruments and traditional maqams.

Tulûat theater is a specific form of theater based on improvisation with no written theatrical text. The origin of this form is related to the privilege given to Güllü Agop, which stated that performing Western-style, Turkish text-based theatre would not be allowed to any but Güllü Agop’s company. The rest of the theater people began to look for alternative ways to do theater and make money. That privilege included neither improvisational theater nor musical theater, so tulûat was developed based on traditional improvisation in the performing arts. The main concern in this type of theater is to attract spectators’ attention to the performance, so the theater players had a series of strategies, with one of these being the inclusion of kanto performances in the show. One of the fundamental functions of these performances is to attract spectator intention. In that sense, having women perform the kanto increased the tulûat’s attractiveness.

The kanto performances achieved their goal: The public liked these performances so much, and big fan groups gathered around the kanto singers. However, some groups labeled kanto as a light form of performance and accused the female artists of being meretricious for standing on stage and behaving flirtatiously with obscene stage costumes. This approach is related to the opinion that describes tulûat theater as lacking seriousness and devoid of art. Once women had gotten on stage in inappropriate costumes, critics inevitably became violent toward them. Women who appeared in the public sphere with clothes they would not have been allowed to wear in daily life, despite not committing any illegal crime, had passed beyond the commonly accepted social rules and boundaries and as such became a threat to social order. The violence the artists faced was not limited to verbal critics. They were also frequently exposed to male violence. Cases occurred very often such as fans invading backstage and physically attacking one another or the kantocus (kanto artists).

In addition to being accused of inappropriateness and meretriciousness, kanto performances were also described as banal because singers developed a wishy-washy image onstage and did not sing known songs. In terms of vocals, the melody of the singer’s voice and the melody of the instrument were not always in harmony, and the singers, being non-Muslim, were unable to pronounce the words in the “proper” dialect. However, the performances were consistent within themself, with the inconsistency of the performance being part of the rules that create the original characteristic of kanto performance. Kanto songs tells a story, with stage props such as sounds, instruments, movement, and costumes being unusually brought together to construct an atmosphere typical of the representative/expressive level. In that sense, one must consider consistency within kanto itself and follow the action executed on the stage in order to understand the fundamentals of kanto as a performing art.

This study analyzes women’s kanto performances between 1880-1920 in tulûat theater in terms of the performance tools and social-cultural context surrounding the artists. The study will discuss the biographies and works of leading names in kanto such as Peruz Terzekyan, Şamram Kelleciyan, Küçük Virjin, and Amelya in terms of the commonly encountered aspects and will reveal the effects the artists’ female identities had on kanto’s performance and reception.