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The Armenian Weekly; Volume 74, No. 12; March 29, 2008
Community:
1. ‘Your Pain is My Pain’:
Yalcin on Turkey’s Crypto-Armenians
By Andy Turpin
2. ‘Out of Darkness’:
A Stand Up and Cheer Success
By Andy Turpin
3. ALMA Presents Armenia Exhibit
4. Poetry Reading in NY
***
1. ‘Your Pain is My Pain’:
Yalcin on Turkey’s Crypto-Armenians
By Andy Turpin
BELMONT, Mass. (A.W.) – On March 24, Turkish author and journalist Kemal
Yalcin spoke at the Holy Cross Armenian Catholic Church about his
experiences interviewing and interacting with Turkey’s underground
crypto-Armenian communities and about his newly English translated book You
Rejoice My Heart. The Tekeyan Cultural Association, the Armenian
Mirror-Spectator and Holy Cross presented the event. Varujan Khachikian
provided the Turkish to English translation for Yalcin.
Marc Mamigonian, director of programs and publications at the National
Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) introduced Yalcin,
stating, "I grew up in the Armenian no-man’s land of Southern New
Hampshire.so even after 10 years, the novelty of being in an Armenian
community has not worn off."
Of his own family experience, Mamigonian said, "It’s the thought of my
grandmother that serves as the reality of historical events for me." He
added of his few face-to-face experiences with Turkish people until
adulthood, "I can’t say I was raised to hate anyone, but what were the
chances I would meet a Turkish person?"
Mamigonian related that meeting scholar Taner Akcam was his first remembered
experience with a Turk and said of his work and of Yalcin’s that "He is
changing the idea that Turks are somehow all against us."
Yalcin began his remarks by recalling, "Very Reverend Father, my dear
Armenian friends, four years ago I was with you in this great hall. It is a
pleasure to see you all again." He said in rebuke of Turkey’s denialist
governmental policies, "They are destroying the mental health of their
society. We will only bring honor to ourselves by creating a culture of
peace."
Speaking of his work in genocide research and exposure, Yalcin said both in
seriousness and some jest, "My dear brothers and sisters, I want to address
two questions I know you will ask: ‘Are you of Armenian origin? Do you have
Armenian relatives?’" He added, "In Greece they asked me, ‘Are you Greek?’ I’d
like to assure you that I’m 100 percent Turkish and a Sunni Muslim. Both my
grandparents were Turkish as well. This pain and suffering is so great, you
don’t have to be of any certain race or religion to feel it."
Yalcin explained, "It’s my job and responsibility to talk about these
wrongdoings. We’re talking about very dangerous subjects. Someone from the
Turkish government could assassinate me. I am like you, I am afraid."
He continued, "But it’s my job to talk about these subjects. The reality is
greater than the fear. Being afraid is a good thing. But to be truthful, it
is our job as human beings to be truthful."
Yalcin remembered, "In my hometown there are many Greeks, but I was never
aware that there were Armenians as well. . It was like everything about the
Armenians came from a machine: uniform and fabricated."
He related how his investigations began, saying, "I’ve been trying to learn
about the Armenian issue for 15 years. In 1994, my father sent me to Greece
to return the family dowry entrusted to him from the Minolu family [during
the genocide]. I started in Athens and located them in Rhodes."
He noted, "During my search, I met people originally from Izmir and other
cities. They told me where they were from and their stories."
Yalcin recounted an interview told alone in the backseat of a cab, in which
"an old grandmother told me her story" and her real Armenian name. "As the
conversation went on, she started crying and said, ‘How could I tell my
grandchildren about my real origin?’"
Yalcin praised Turkish authors and political dissidents Taner Akcam and
Halil Berktay, saying he strove to their example. "What I am trying to
achieve is this: I’m trying to do my best to learn from them. My main
purpose is to meet survivors and write their accounts. But I have only
written 2,000 pages. Compare it to your pain and suffering and it is
nothing."
Unlike other scholars, he continued his indictment of the Turkish government
into more modern epochs, saying, "The Turcification of the land was
continued by the Republic of Turkey."
Speaking of those he interviewed, Yalcin said, "Some Armenians said, ‘We’ll
tell you the whole story, but do not print our names.’ Others said, ‘For 80
years we were silent and gained nothing. Write down everything I say.’"
"Our People," he said, referring to the internal name for Turkey’s
crypto-Armenians, "in their own houses pray secretly to the picture of Jesus
Christ and only marry their own people. You need to earn their trust, and I
was fortunate enough to do that."
He explained the rituals of Anatolia’s crypto-Armenians, stating, "Before a
wedding, the bride must be baptized in the [usually Syriac] church." He
noted that wedding parties were held in isolated places to avoid ambushes
and that everyone young came armed. Groomsmen showed him machine guns in
their cars’ trunks saying, "We have to be ready for anything."
Yalcin ended the evening by saying to those in attendance and on stage
beside him, "My dear Armenian friends, your pain is my pain. As a Turkish
writer I’d like to express my sorrow for what happened under my name-and for
all humanity. I also share the suffering of the Kurds and the Assyrians and
all the others that suffered. I present to you my heart. You rejoice my
heart."
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2. ‘Out of Darkness’:
A Stand Up and Cheer Success
By Andy Turpin
BOSTON, Mass. (A.W.) – On March 22, The Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and the
Sayat Nova Dance Company presented a joint collaboration anti-genocide dance
performance titled Out of Darkness at the Cutler Majestic Theatre of Emerson
College.
A grandiose reception was held prior to the performance, presented by the
show’s partners Facing History and Ourselves, Springstep, the Jewish
Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, and the Cutler Majestic
Theater of Emerson College.
Nancy K. Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations
Council of Greater Boston, introduced the event, stating of the performance’s
cooperations, "There is all too much that we share between the Jewish
community and the Armenians."
Anthony Barsamian, chairman of the Armenian Assembly of America, said of the
show’s artistic milestone, "I’m very proud of the Massachusetts Jewish and
Armenian communities. Two words come to mind tonight: redemption and
sacrifice. Tonight we will see alongside Shabbat and Easter, artistic
redemption."
Also present at the reception and performance, seen literally stopping
traffic to escort elderly Jews and Armenians across the street, was State
Representative Peter J. Koutoujian (D-Mass.).
"Out of Darkness" played to a packed house with much anticipation in the
air. Daniel Neuman, CEO for the New Center for Arts and Culture, presented a
short welcome to the crowd before the evening’s entertainment.
In a reversal from the originally planned program order, the Liz Lerman
dancers presented their solo segment of the performance, "Small Dances About
Big Ideas," in the first half of the show instead of the second. It was a
moving, multi-layered and emotional experience of original and hard-edged
dance about infinitely more razor-backed topics of wholesale death and
annihilation.
Like "A Clockwork Orange," producing artistic director Peter DiMuro and Liz
Lerman didn’t let you look away or escape the realities and legacies of
genocide, regardless of what kind of news-hound, cynic, granola liberal or
hardnosed economist you may have been.
If you believe that "Dance is dance and news is news and never the two shall
twain," then it’s clear you haven’t yet seen "Out of Darkness."
Part modern dance, part Edward R. Murrow broadcast and part Marshall McLuhan
dream about the best of possibilities for the melding of art and political
culture, "Out of Darkness" delivers a surreal and powerful timeline of
genocide and those who fought to combat it over the past century.
They use every trick in the book: from machine-gunned dancers in
choreographed death knell, to doppelganger wrestling between the duality of
genocidal and nurturing African tribalism, to genocide definition creator
Raphael Lemkin as a character screaming and signaling the world to finally
be heard in action among a siege of moving quotes and conjectures about the
nature of genocide and human rights.
In the second half of the performance Sayat Nova and the Armenian community
picked up the gauntlet and told through dance the story of Armenia’s heroic
Herculean trials and survival across an ocean of genocide, denial and the
sands of time.
Beginning with "A Child Questions History" and ending with "A Prologue of
Pictures," the latter performed by both troupes onstage simultaneously,
director Apo Ashjian propelled the audience’s expectations to new heights.
For those that have already been impressed in the past by the dancing of
Sayat Nova, the impetus and chance to show off their abilities as being at
the same arc of Lerman’s dancers forged everyone to shine at their absolute
best, and the audience reciprocated in spades.
Dances that were already strong in their conviction became fanatical, and
crowd enthusiasm that could have merely been "happily folksy" surged with
the help of the Armenian community to the point of a near rampage kef.
During the question and answer session that followed the performance, Lerman
said of the inspiration for her troupe’s segment of the show that "’Small
Dances About Big Ideas’ was actually originally commissioned to be not about
the Holocaust but a commission from Harvard Law School about the anniversary
of the Nuremberg trial and bringing human rights law into the present."
Ashjian said of the first-time collaboration between the two companies that
"There were a lot of challenges. We are folk dancers, not modern dancers.
But those challenges were met."
As an Armenian, he said," Our struggle is to continue the struggle for
recognition. That is why we’re dancing. We want to celebrate life and
existence."
He also praised DiMuro for his tireless work and patience as dual-troupe
middleman and coordinator, saying, "Peter very quickly understood our
culture and our history, and from there it was like magic. Very soon I
couldn’t believe the things our guys and girls were doing!"
Lerman ended by stating, "Collaborations are full of hope, but there’s
arguing. But I have to say that it was exactly the right order."
See p. 10 for Andy Turpin’s interview with Liz Lerman.
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3. ALMA Presents Armenia Exhibit
WATERTOWN, Mass.-Through mid-May, the Armenian Library and Museum of America
(ALMA) will be hosting a photography exhibit titled "Armenian Village
People: A Country Kaleidoscope" in their gallery on 65 Main St. in
Watertown.
The pictures, three of which are featured below, are part of a collection
taken by Tom Vartabedian during his trip to Armenia in 2006. Particular
focus was paid to the outlying regions.
Proceeds from sales will be donated to ALMA and the Armenian Relief Society’s
Centennial Fund.
A public reception will take place on Sun., April 6, from 2-5 p.m.
Vartabedian spent 40 years as a writer and photographer for the Haverhill
Gazette before retiring in 2007. A previous exhibit on photojournalism was
hosted by ALMA three years ago.
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4. Poetry Reading in NY
NEW YORK (A.W.)-On March 15, the Greek-American Writers’ Association held
its monthly reading event at the Cornelia Street Cafe in the Greenwich
Village section of New York City. The series, hosted by Dean Kostos,
presented a slightly different program this month with the theme of
translation.
During the course of two hours, Miltiades Matthias read from his
translations of two poetry cycles by Nobel laureate George Seferis; Susan
Matthias read from her new translation of Seferis’s only novel, Six Nights
on the Acropolis; Andriana Rizos read from her own poems; and Lola
Koundakjian read from her own poems and translations.
This was Koundakjian’s second appearance with the Greek-American group at
the Cornelia Street Cafe. She read from her most recent work and finished
her segment with some old favorites.