Engin’s Vox Pop Tête-à-Tête – 8/9/2013
Dawn Büyükertaş.
By Engin Dervișağa
This week’s Vox Pop programme was recorded in Girne at the home of Dawn Büyükertaş.
Dawn has had a great deal of experience in the world of theatre and entertainment. She worked in several jobs in the UK. Firstly in local government and at the Lewisham theatre working in the entertainment offices. Following this she went to the North East of England and managed a pier theatre on Cleethorpes Beach. At that time she was the youngest manager in the UK at only 19 years of age.
Then Dawn became a Red Coat for Butlins. At Butlins Dawn was a singer and entertainer gaining her experience at a young age. She then met 
another girl and joined the Eddie Morris Dancers touring the Middle East, the Far East, Japan, China, Hong Kong… Her friend married an Australian and now lives in Australia but they are still in touch.
Dawn later joined another dance group and toured with them to many countries. Although she liked to dance, Dawn preferred singing and while working in Jordan she met a Portuguese group and joined them as a singer, working in Jordan, and she stayed with them for 1½ years.
With the extensive travelling Dawn has done she has also learned several languages phonetically including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese, Filipino, Malay and Japanese. She has lived in Portugal, Italy, Spain, Hong Kong which was her base in the Far East and Dubai which was her base in the Middle East. Her many languages also help Dawn with her singing and she can perform in 10 different languages.
Dawn felt the need to have a more relaxed life style and having been to North Cyprus on holiday many times, she decided to make it her home, coming here to live 9 years ago. She is enjoying her life here and pursuing her hobby of jewellery making which she displays on her stall at Chateau Lambousa market every Saturday. As well as this Dawn still entertains at restaurants and for private parties and she has a regular spot at Cousins 
Restaurant in Alsancak. Then there is children’s entertainment, birthdays etc. where she can take the pressure off the parents and give the children a couple of hours fun with face painting, treasure hunts, musical statues and many other party games.
As if this isn’t enough, Dawn also offers to look after people’s pets when they are going away (mainly dogs and cats). This is done either staying at the people’s home or travelling there to make sure the pets are fed and watered. Dawn doesn’t take pets into her own home as she has 2 dogs and a cat herself. She said both dogs are a bit “mad” but then they were both rescue dogs and had traumatic lives before joining her.
I was very nicely serenaded by Dawn during the interview and asked if she would like to give any message to the viewers to round off the programme. Dawn said she has some time available for bookings and if there are any people who would like to use her for entertainment for adults and children she can be contacted at her jewellery stall at Chateau Lambousa market every Saturday, or by making contact through All Stars at Almond Village or Michelle at Best Seller Bookshop in Alsancak.
Do join me next Sunday, 15th September at 10.30am, for another fascinating interview on my show VOX POP on BRT2 Television, and you can find out about the subject of my next interview in my next article to be published in the next few days on http://www.cyprusscene.com
