On 5 October 2002, a grand performance called Binyılın Türküsü – The Saga of the Millennium as its organisers translated it – took place in one of the largest indoor stadiums in Istanbul. It was organised by the European Federation of Alevi Associations, bringing together 1,500 bağlama players ranging in age from seven to seventy, several hundred semah performers and dozens of soloists, most from different parts of Turkey and Europe, but also several from Australia and North America. Every effort was made to publicise the event, parts of which were also broadcast live on a few national television channels in Turkey.

The performance was set up as a stylised Alevi religious ceremony known as a ‘cem’, in which the ritual dance of semah is performed by groups of men and women, and mystical poems (deyiş or nefes) are recited, accompanied by the music of the bağlama, the sacred lute. However, the performance's sheer size and splendour, its cosmopolitan venue and its inclusion of diverse traditions of music and dance from around the world, as well as its organisers’ concerted effort to reach as wide an audience as possible, set The Saga of the Millennium in stark contrast to traditional Alevi cems, which took place in a village setting with close-knit congregations that were strictly closed to the non-initiated. Alevis would hold their cems at night in utmost secrecy to avoid the state authorities and their Sunni Muslim neighbours who viewed them with suspicion because of their non-conformity to shariʿa-centred normative Islam. While most Alevis live in urban centres and lead secular lives today, with their Alevi heritage more a cultural than a religious affiliation, their community identity is still deeply rooted in a shared sense of being a group persecuted for its beliefs. These collective memories of oppression and resistance were enacted throughout The Saga of the Millennium, turning the performance into a celebration of the Alevis’ cultural resilience.