The Montreal Gazette
February 7, 2013 Thursday
Sayat Nova’s Journey Through Time
by Victor Swoboda
With its latest show, the Boston-based Armenian folk-dance ensemble,
Sayat Nova, might well surprise those who think of folk dancing as
grinning villagers prancing in lederhosen. The first half of the show
called Journey Through Time depicts Armenia’s 4,000-year history of
early paganism, defiant Christian faith, bloody battles and
indomitable survival. One tableau showing a massacre of Armenians by
Turks comes with a parental advisory notice.
Company founder and chief choreographer Apo Ashjian has heavily
stylized the violence, of course, to make it palatable on stage. But
his decision to tackle the harshest moments of Armenia’s history shows
how seriously he takes the company’s aim of “preserving and promoting
Armenian culture.” Spectators will get some inkling of Armenia’s role
as a cradle of Western civilization.
“Ashjian starts with a strong dance showing pagan Armenian symbols,
then through important points of Armenian history, accepting
Christianity, the battle of Vartanantz against the Persian empire,
then to (the massacres of) 1915,” said Raffi Migdesyan, a Montrealer
who in 1986 regularly travelled to Boston with three other local
dancers to rehearse and dance with the newly formed Sayat Nova.
One number uses a love song by the 18th century troubadour, Sayat
Nova, after whom the company was named, who wrote about his forbidden
love for a princess and his consequent banishment.
The show’s second half is a medley of vigorous and lyrical Armenian
folk dances along the lines of the entertaining show that Sayat Nova
performed in Montreal in 2004. These include the highland Kochari, and
the Yarkhoushda, a militant dance with clapping and stomping.
“Sayat Nova was a community dance group when we started,” recalled
Migdesyan. “Now it’s much larger, younger and more professional. When
I first came, three dancers were pregnant. Now their kids are dancing
in the group!”
The troupe’s dancers were trained at Ashjian’s own school, Abaka,
where more than 100 students age 3 to 16 are enrolled. Ashjian’s three
grown children will be among those performing in Montreal.
A self-supporting troupe aided by volunteers and donors, the company
produces its own brilliant array of costumes.
“Every single costume is traditional, authentic,” said Migdesyan. “If
you touch the material, you’ll say it feels like a rug.”
Ashjian recorded the show’s music using bands in Armenia, again to
ensure authenticity.
“You can be entertained and at the same time learn something about the
history and music of one of the world’s oldest cultures,” Migdesyan
said.
Sayat Nova, Saturday, at 7:30 p.m. at Centre Pierre-Péladeau, 300 de
Maisonneuve Blvd. E. For Tickets, Call 514-279-3066.
From: Baghdasarian