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Didem is not Russian - she is Romani with mother from Selanik and father from former Yugoslavia. She was born on 1986 so she is still very young and she grew up at Romani quarters of Istanbul and has one older sister and one brother. Her family consists of musicians and dancers like so many other Romani families: her sister is singer, grandfather was well known ud-player, father plays drums, and her mother Tülay was also a dancer. She started dancing very young (and quitted school after just couple of years) and studied with Sema Yildiz at the age of 13 - 14 even though she says that her mother naturally taught her basic dance knowledge (and to play zills, what she unfortunately does not do at Ibo Show).
Before being discovered by Ibrahim Tatlises she had already danced several years, mostly at weddings and henna parties. Nowadays Ibo has more or less "exclusive right" on her so it is not very likely to see her at Istanbul nightclubs but she dances where Ibo sings and of course she is seen a lot at TV (both at Ibo Show and also some other shows)
I am not a fan of hers: I think that she is cute, young dancer who does not (yet) have originality or her own style. She is very flexible and often her dancing is more acrobatics than real dancing - she often also seems to copy other dancers as even at YouTube there have been several clips of her dancing almost exact copies of Jillina´s, Amar Gamal´s and even Rachel Brice´s dances and some Bollywood. I hate these copies but when she is dancing Romani style she is absolutely wonderful - and also when she dances to live (Turkish) music she seems to "come alive" in contrast to her typical gimmicky and always similar drum solos.
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