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Tumay Tunur was born in 26th of January 1984 in Turkey. Even though she wanted to learn how to dance when she was a little kid, her enthusiasm did not go further than pictures of her pretending to dance, since they did not have any dance studios or instructors in the town she grew up. When she left for high school, she started taking modern dance classes and she continued her modern dance education as a hobby in university with Contemporary Dance Society when she was getting her bachelor degree in biology. They organized a international dance festival every year with dancers from all around the world. Only until she injured her back and her doctor told her to quit dancing and throwing herself to the floor and jumping around… However, she could only wait couple of months without dancing, and decided to dance international ballroom since they usually keep their posture up, and do not throw themselves to the floor- at least that was what she thought at first! She auditioned for the Turkey’s best dance team METU Coupled Dances Club ans started learning salsa at a dance studio. After 3 month of salsa education she competed in an amateur competition with Ender Hacipoglu and ended third. (2005)tumay


She was trained by Ipek Yavuzer and Andrey Rhopokin for two years in international latin dances. Competed in many dance sport competitions for 5-dances (rumba, cha cha, jive, paso doble, samba) She joined workshops from world re-known Ballroom/ Latin instructors Alexander Litvinenko, Elena Pashkovski, Evgeny Smagin & Rachel Heron.

However, even the degrees she earned could not change her mind and her love about salsa, so she kept competing in salsa competitions as well with Berkan Kaymaz. They took classes from various instructors including Aytunc Benturk- Mayan World Salsa Champion in Internationals 2005. They attended to many workshops and worked with Paul Young, Nuno & Vanda, Manuel Mascarell, Juan Matos… Berkan and Tumay competed in many nationwide professional salsa competitions and ended at the first place in most of them.

Their teaching career started and they trained many students for competitions as well. She was qualified as a judge for Optimum Show Salsa Competition.

At the time Tumay was choreographing for a musical company and she made pieces for Chicago, Cats, Cabaret and many others and also for the METU Coupled dances club.

She made her longest piece 20 min salsa-modern latin show “CarMan” with his teaching partner Altug Guler.(Take-to-Full-Moon Productions)

After graduating from university, Tumay moved to New Orleans, USA for her PhD at Cell and Molecular Biology at Tulane University. (2007) She met Troy Anthony and Georgette, who helped her a lot to explore the salsa world in states.
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She went to New York, and she took classes from dancers such as; Eddie Torres, Frankie Martinezolfo and Yamulee Dance Company. She coached to Tulane Salsa Team for a year, performed and attended many congresses with different partners or dance teams.

In 2007, she formed the salsa company La Luna Negra. Tumay and her former partner attended many congresses and organized events with Darlin and Uriel Garcia together. They were trained with Hache y Machete, Ana and Joel, Melissa Rosado and many other instructors  known for their great knowledge in salsa music and dancing.

 Tumay is currently teaching salsa classes in New Orleans and organizing events by bringing World renown dancers to the city for workshops to help re-building the salsa scene in New Orleans after the hurricane.

Tumay remembers all of her instructors with a lot of respect and she thinks of everyone who taught her one single thing as her instructor. She believes, there is always something to learn from everyone, and the best way to improve is not to deny the information you need.
 
Designed and maintained by Tumay Tunur.           tumay@mamboorleans.com
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