ARMENIAN REPORTER
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March 24, 2007 — From the arts and culture section
All of the articles that appear below are special to the ARMENIAN REPORTER
For photographs, maps, and other images, visit
Briefly
1. Yaghjian retrospective at South Carolina State Museum in Columbia
2. Pianist Serouj Kradjian helps raise funds for Karabakh
3. Remembrance Day on Twin Cities Public Television
4. Year of Charents starts with poet’s 110th birthday
5. Callin’ up a renassiance on the banana phone
6. He is hip and he knows how to hop: Mihran dances and sings his way
into celebrity (by Paul Chaderjian)
7. Rediscovering Ervand Kochar (by Gregory Lima)
8. Ardavazt finds a rare "Lost Letter" (by Aram Kouyoumdjian)
9. We’re welcome to see ourselves in Pari Kaloosd (by Betty
Panossian-Ter Sargssian)
10. Robert Mangurian builds Noah’s Ark in Glendale: The architect
behind the hip addition to the Alex Pilibos School (by Tamar Kevonian)
11. Stories of Armenian cinema unveiled: Garineh
12. Armenian film history on TV: Mi Filmi Badmutiun blows the dust
away (by Betty Panossian-Ter Sargssian)
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Briefly
1. Yaghjian retrospective at South Carolina State Museum in Columbia
More than 100 paintings and sketches by Edmund Yaghjian (1905-1997)
went on exhibit last Sunday as part of a retrospective of a man South
Carolinians consider one of the most influential artists and art
educators of the Palmetto State. Yaghjian’s most recognized works
portray scenes from city life, residents running errands, and
unflattering perspectives of older neighborhoods. Sometimes the humans
he portrayed looked like cartoon characters, but his most distinct
touch was perhaps the use of unexpected colors like orange to paint
the sky and yellow to paint the earth.
Yaghjian was born in Kharpert in Western Armenia and moved to Rhode
Island with his parents when he was two. He graduated from the Rhode
Island School of Design in 1930, achieved artistic celebrity in New
York in the 1930s and was appointed as the first head of the
Department of Fine Arts at the University of South Carolina in 1945.
He retired from that post in 1966 and was named the university’s first
artist-in-residence.
The South Caroline State Museum retrospective will remain on exhibit
for six months until mid-September at the Lipscomb Gallery. In
addition to Yaghjian’s work, the retrospective is also featuring
artists who were influenced, encouraged, and inspired by South
Carolina’s champion of the arts.
connect:
2. Pianist Serouj Kradjian helps raise funds for Karabakh
Internationally acclaimed pianist Serouj Kradjian’s parents chose his
first name because it combines the Armenian words for love and
strength, ser and ouj. That love for music and strength of character
have taken Kradjian from Beirut to Vienna, from Toronto to Carnegie
Hall, and from studying piano at five to international concert halls,
awards, and recording contracts.
The Canadian Armenian Association for the Performing Arts (CAAPA)
hosted a fundraising concert by Kradjian two weeks ago at the CBC Glen
Gould Studio concert hall in Toronto. The fundraiser will help the
"Hayastan" All-Armenian Fund construct the "Baroness Caroline Cox"
school in the Verin Horatagh village in the Republic of
Nagorno-Karabagh.
"Hayastan" All-Armenian Fund Toronto Chapter president Migirdic
Migirdicyan told those attending that a music classroom at the
Baroness Caroline Cox school will be named after Kradjian and the
CAAPA. Migirdicyan also presented Kradjian a presidential gold coin
commemorating the 15th anniversary of the independence of the Republic
of Nagorno Karabagh.
Up ahead this week for Kradjian are March 28 and March 30 recitals
with his wife, world-renowned and award-winning soprano, opera and
recording star Isabel Bayrakdarian in Palm Beach, Florida, and
Savannah, Georgia.
connect:
http://ww w.bayrakdarian.com/
3. Remembrance Day on Twin Cities Public Television
Minneapolis-St. Paul metro residents with access to the Minnesota
Channel will be able to watch two documentaries about the Armenian
Genocide produced by Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) and the
University of Minnesota. "Armenians and Turkey’s Lingering Past"
features Profs. Taner Akçam and Eric Weitz discussing Akçam’s recent
book, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of
Turkish Responsibility.
Produced by TPT and the Institute for Advanced Study, "Armenians and
Turkey’s Lingering Past" airs Sunday, April 1; Monday, April 23; and
Tuesday, April 24. "Armenian Genocide: 90 Years Later," features
interviews with Profs. Akçam, Weitz, and Stephen Feinstein, as well as
family members of Armenian Genocide survivors. This regional
Emmy-nominated production by TPT and the Center for Holocaust and
Genocide Studies airs Monday, April 23, and Tuesday, April 24. TPT’s
Minnesota Channel programs are available on cable and over-the-air
digital television, and are also featured on TPT Channel 17 Saturday
and Sunday nights.
connect:
4. Year of Charents starts with poet’s 110th birthday
March 13th marked the 110th birthday Yeghisheh Charents, the great poet.
The Union of Armenian Writers and the Yeghisheh Charents Museum
together honored the poet’s memory on that day. A gathering was
organized at the statue of the poet in Yerevan on the same day; it
concluded with a visit to the Charents Museum.
Expect more Charents-related events in 2007, for it has been
proclaimed the Year of Charents.
connect: 17 Mashtots St., Yerevan. +374 10 53 55 94.
5. Callin’ up a renassiance on the banana phone
If you were within earshot of the Disney Channel in the 80s and 90s or
invested in vinyl or CD albums or videos for children during the past
30 years, you are bound to know the voice behind these lyrics:
Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea,
Swim so wild and you swim so free.
Heaven above and the sea below,
And a little white whale on the go.
You’re just a little white whale on the go.
Yup! You guessed it. Raffi (AKA Raffi Cavoukian, AKA The Baby Beluga
Man). One of the most popular children’s entertainers of our times,
this best selling Canadian-Armenian singer-songwriter, musician,
entertainer, and educator has sold more than 14 million copies of his
videos, cassettes, CDs and DVDs.
After 30 years of singing and entertaining, Raffi is still at it.
This time he has taken on a global humanitarian mission to educate
the kids who grew up listening to his songs. His newest project is
called COOL IT (downloadable for free), and it is dedicated to
educating parents, policy makers, and world leaders about global
warming.
Raffi’s "Child Honoring" campaign is also in full swing this year
with a new book. Symposia and lectures about creating a commercial-
free childhood and a child-friendly world are being planned throughout
the U.S. and Canada.
Raffi will be appearing in Atlanta, Georgia, and at the University
of Pittsburgh later this month. He will be speaking in British
Columbia in April and in Corning, New York in May. Raffi says his
children-first paradigm is focused on global restoration.
connect:
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6. He is hip and he knows how to hop
Mihran dances and sings his way into celebrity
by Paul Chaderjian
GLENDALE, Calif. – Tens of thousands of feverish fans cheer. Their
applause is thunderous, overwhelmingly powerful. The colorful lights
flaring from above are pure eye candy. They flash and dance to the
booming beat that is both heard and felt. Giant television screens on
the multilevel stage put the audience on stage, increasing the
electrifying decibel of excitement one notch higher.
Welcome to the most successful concert tour in modern history. By
the time it’s over, it will gross more than $125 million, attracting
nearly 900 thousand people to its venues. The show is well produced
and slick. It’s the hottest ticket of the year, and it’s a celebration
of the most successful female recording star of all time – Madonna
Louise Veronica Ciccone Ritchie.
At center stage, in the eye of this fantastic moment is a modern-day
legend, Forbes Magazine’s fourth-wealthiest woman in entertainment.
She is petite, yet bigger than life. She was once banned from MTV; she
defended her art on "Nightline"; and she has sold more than 200
million albums. She is a singer, dancer, producer, actress, media
mogul, writer of children’s books, athlete, designer, businesswoman,
Kabbalah student, and the obsession of millions of fans. She was Eva
Peron. Now she is the Royal Madge.
Dancing with this always-intriguing master of entertainment,
skin-to-skin, gyrating, gliding, popping, locking, and break dancing
with Madonna is an 18-year-old high school student, Mihran Kirakosian
– the youngest dancer to tour around the world with Madonna. He’s
handsome, athletic, and he will do more by age 22 than most people do
all their lives.
The year is 2004, and this tour is Mihran’s first 56-concert dancing
gig. He is performing in front of audiences ranging from 20 to 95
thousand people. By the end of the tour, 880 thousand people will have
seen him dance. It’s his first public performance with Madonna and the
first of hundreds more with not just the Queen of Pop, but also with
the other biggest headliners in the entertainment business.
Flash forward to March 18, 2007. Mihran is on tour with pop star
Ricky Martin. He’s the youngest dancer on the tour, which began in
South America, will continue in Central then North America, and
finally end in Europe. During a weeklong break between performances in
Caracas, Venezuela, and Panama City, Panama, the 22-year-old comes
home to Glendale for a few days and makes time for an interview with
the Armenian Reporter.
I ask him about his first world tour – Madonna’s Re-invention Tour –
and what was racing through his mind during the first show. "We were
doing the opening show at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles," he
says. "Seventeen thousand or 18 thousand people. One of the first
things that go through your mind is what you have to go through to be
in that position. In the beginning of the show, I was kinda nervous
being on the stage. Not nervous that I was going to mess up or
anything. More anxious like, ‘Wow, I’m here. I’m about to perform with
Madonna.’"
Mihran’s performance in Madonna’s shows are what he calls ‘Hip Hop’
dancing. Sometimes it’s freestyle. Sometimes carefully choreographed.
"For Ricky Martin, his music has a lot of Latin flavor to it," says
Mihran. "The director is the same director from Madonna’s tours, Jamie
King. There are some parts when I’m doing my own thing. It is similar
to the stuff that I did for Madonna, my moves, my choreography."
When he’s not freestyling, the 22 year old picks up without effort
the moves celebrity choreographers like King show him. "I’ve done so
much dancing since I was young that anything they teach me
choreography-wise is easy to pick up."
Mihran picked up his dance skills early in life. His father, Garo
Kirakosian, is a choreographer and dance instructor and had his own
dance troupe in Armenia. Mihran grew up performing in the Armenian
community in Southern California. He began dancing when he was six and
had his first professional job at the age of 16, bringing his break
dancing and hip hop dancing talents and skills to Nune Yesayan’s 2002
concert at the Kodak Theatre.
After Nune’s concert came more auditions. An appearance on the BET
Awards, dancing with Lil’ Kim. Then there was the Britney Spears’
Promo Tour. Madonna’s Re-invention tour. Madonna’s Confessions Tour.
An appearance with the B2K Boys and a movie called "You Got Served."
Mihran’s most recent movie role has been break dancing in the comedy
motion picture "Reno 911."
"Break dance is mostly on the ground, mostly power moves, a lot of
tricks, a lot of footwork," explains Mihran. "Popping is a little hard
to describe. It has little robotics moves to it. It’s kinda of like
you’re popping your body to kinda be like how robots move. Now people
took it to another level. They mix a lot of their own flavor to it.
It’s just all different dances that were from the old school, the 80s,
and it all comes from break dancing, and it’s a mixture of
everything."
The movements of his body, his arms and legs through space and time
are Mihran’s art. His movements, built on the basics of street
dancing, are movements entire generations have been replicating on the
streets, in clubs, on television and in the movies since the 1980s.
Motions can be fluid, but sometimes mechanized. There are spins and
twists, somersaults, gymnastic-precision acrobatics but all to a beat
to bring a song, a concert to life.
"Back in 2004, everything was new," he says. "I was learning. I was
seeing. I was watching. Now, it’s like I’ve done so many shows with
her that it’s just about going out there, having fun and putting on
the best show."
The best show is every show, because Mihran and the others on stage
rehearse for more than two months, running through an entire show
sometimes twice a day before their first public performance. The
rehearsals are rigorous, and perfection is the goal. Whether it’s 17
thousand in L.A. or 95 thousand in Denmark, Mihran has to hit his
marks and put on the best show every time.
"The biggest crowd I did was like 250, 350 thousand people, just
standing and watching," he says. "Me and another dancer named Cloud
did the "Live 8" charity show with Madonna in London. We were in Hyde
Park, and you couldn’t see the end of the people. That was an amazing
feeling being on stage and 350 thousand people watching me dancing,
plus another billion or two watching at home around the world, because
it was televised around the world."
Madonna invited Mihran to fly to London an appear at "Live 8" when
he was in Yerevan. The year was 2005. Summer of 2005. Mihran was on a
trip to Armenia to help his brother Gor shoot his comedy feature "A
Big Story in a Little City." He says he went back to his native
Yerevan to be around his brother and support him. "But I’m a
work-a-holic and wanted to do something," he says. "I couldn’t be
there for a month and not do something."
What Mihran did was record a few rap songs, which would eventually
make their way into his debut rap album called "It’s My Time."
However, working in Armenia proved to be a bit frustrating for one of
the hardest working 22-year-olds in the world. "People over there
don’t work on the pace I work in, I guess," he says. "Cause, I can
wake up in the morning and start working into the night and not do
anything else. And they looked at me like I was crazy, because I was
in Armenia. They were thinking I should be wanting to vacation and
hang out, and all I wanted to do was work."
Madonna was his saving grace from that humid, hot and boring summer
in Yerevan. She sent him an e-mail and asked him to come to London. "I
was like, ‘great, I’ve been wanting to leave and work for some time
now,’" he says. "So, I flew from Armenia to London and did ‘Live 8’
and then came back. Then spent another week in Yerevan and flew back
home."
In addition to performing his hip-hop, break dancing, popping and
locking dance moves on stage with Madonna for nearly two billion
people to see around the world, Mihran is easily recognized by Madonna
fans. He has appeared everywhere the Material Girl has appeared since
2004. He is seen on her music videos, during her tours and concerts.
He was even photographed for her "Agent M" print campaign. About his
fame, Mihran says it’s fun and that it’s great to be recognized for
something that he does and for something he loves to do.
"When I was young, I dreamed of wanting to be on stage," he says. "I
would watch TV, and I would watch all these artists perform, and I was
like, ‘why can’t I do that?’ I had this dream that I wanted to be part
of that. I wanted to somehow be involved around them, dance with them,
just work with them. That was my dream, and I wanted to do everything
that came to my mind to get that."
A dream coming true is the most amazing feeling in the world, says
Mihran. Being on stage on a world tour and realizing what he wished
for as a child was reality is a moment he will cherish forever. Now
that dream is a job he has to do 70, 80 or 90 times, over and over
again.
"After a while, it gets kinda boring," says Mihran, "so you have to
pump yourself up before you go on stage. I tell myself that there is
someone in the audience who had dreamed of watching the show, the
Madonna show or the Ricky Martin show. I say to myself that it’s the
first time they’re going to see the show and see me perform, so I want
to be out there giving my best performance for that one audience
member. Because I know that this is the only time that that one person
might be there to watch the show. That’s how I feel when I go out
there. That’s what gives me the motivation to go out there and do good
everyday."
"I’ve been trying to involve myself in acting more," says Mihran.
"I’m still young, but I did everything I wanted to do as a dancer.
I’ve danced for the biggest artists that I could think of, and after
that, I came to a point where I said, ‘Oh wow, what do I do next?’"
Ahead are more auditions, work on his second rap album and even a
clothing line called Mafia Style, which Mihran and his brother Gor
will launch by the end of the year. What Mihran knows for certain is
that projects ‘come out of nowhere.’ He says he has learned from being
around spiritual people like Madonna. He has watched them go about
life and go about their business, and he has learned a lot from
talking to them.
"There are projects that I do for myself like the clothing line, the
album," he says. "Those are things I’m interested in and do it myself.
Tours and stuff like that, they always come through my agency. People
that I work with, they’ll call me and say we’re doing this artist and
would you like to be part of it? So those things are never planned
out. They just kinda happen, because everything just kind of fits into
place somehow. You get to work with people. You get to meet people.
And then those people call you for something. Once you have your foot
in the door, and if you’re good and people like what you do,
everything just falls into place."
I ask him what he will take away from touring the world with the pop
icons of the day. Mihran says what has stood out for him most is the
materialism that is rampant in the US. "I think it’s very US, very LA,
very New York, very Miami. I want to say that I look at living in the
States as not really living, just kinda working. Everyone here wants
to be somebody. Everybody in America wants to be known for something.
Everybody in America wants to be accepted. Everybody wants to make it.
That’s what living in LA, living in the States is all about.
Everyone’s got the same goal, to make it."
In contrast, says Mihran, when he travels to places Italy and
Argentina, he meets people who are focused on living and living well.
"They just want to live," he says. "They just want to have fun. They
just want to go out with their friends. It doesn’t matter how much
money you’ve got. It doesn’t matter. They just want to live."
Mihran says one thing he knows for certain is that he has to be
receptive for what comes his way, because life is always changing, as
are the values and beliefs people hold on to. "People need to be open
to things," he says. "So many things have changed in my life from
meeting people, from experiencing things, from seeing things." Since
change is something certain for Mihran, what he values most are his
family and his health. "Without family and friends, nothing really
matters," he says. "I can have all the money in the world. If i don’t
have anyone to share it with, it’s not going to matter if you do have
it or don’t have it."
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7. Rediscovering Ervand Kochar
by Gregory Lima
The poet Yeghishe Charents talking to his friend, the prodigiously
talented avant-garde painter Ervand Kochar, who was thinking of going
home after intensely productive years in Europe, is reputed to have
predicted of his soaring reputation, "In Armenia you will stand as
high as the Eiffel Tower in Paris." Not exactly, GREGORY LIMA writes.
Succeed he did. Today, Charents and Kochar each has his place in the
hearts of Armenians, each has a museum dedicated to his life and work
in the middle of Yerevan on the same central thoroughfare only a few
blocks apart, and each has a street named in his honor. But it was no
easy return to the homeland. They met persecution, imprisonment, and
fatal disappearance, one in short-shrift fact, the other by prolonged,
enforced silence. There was no lack of others of vast and still
budding talent in this generation who may have become familiar names
in the arts and sciences but who were cut short, perishing or eking
on, promise broken.
Here, in light and dark, we will follow the story of Kochar, one of
that brilliant generation of Armenians whose true measure we are only
now beginning to understand.
Born in 1899 in Tiflis, at that time the cultural and educational
capital of Armenians, he completed studies at the famous Nersissian
Seminary. At the same time he attended the Schmerling School of Arts
and Sculpture. There is a surviving work from this earliest period, a
small painting of a girl sitting in deep shadow in the corner of an
otherwise empty room. It is a small, unpretentious portrait of
loneliness, isolation, and longing. It emits a palpable sense of the
unrealized yearnings of someone young and somehow condemned to be
alone. Ervand Kochar clearly possessed a precocious talent.
* Welcoming the revolution
At 19 years of age he went to Moscow, attending the Konchalovsky class
at the State Free Art Studios. There in 1918-19, among the artists,
the revolution was welcomed with heady hope not only for a new order
of fraternal social relations but also for the possible liberation of
thought and imagination as well, auguring an unfettered new art that
would ennoble the mind and speak to everyone. It would include the
revolutionary innovations currently centered in Paris; it would carry
forward the notion of depicting the essence of a subject rather than
simply its outward appearance.
Kochar enters into this dialogue with the brilliant oil, "De
Profundis," painted in 1919. Within a narrow, tight frame, a young man
carries an immense burden invisible to the eye and wrings his hands in
the emotional grip of a consuming grief. It is an art where the
interior affects and informs the outward form, and it does so with
profound and haunting effect. Kochar, among others, sought a new art
in which the meticulous combination of the sensuous and the cerebral –
as found in the work of Cezanne – might be the springboard to the art
of the future. "I am from Cezanne," Kochar would one day later say.
Returning to Tiflis his work seems to have let in some sunshine. It
was in this period that he painted his portrait, still very much in
somber tones, of Arpenik, the girl he loved. Less somber are precious
sketches of people cavorting in a park, touched with light and perhaps
the tinkle of laughter. He would do another, lighter study of Arpenik,
but she told him she could not return his love. Might it have been
different had she been able to do so? Whatever the proximate cause,
Kochar’s heart now went to study and join the avant-garde in Paris,
and with some canvases under his arm and barely a crumb in his pocket,
he was off.
* Euclid’s brain
It took him more than a year to arrive. It may not have been possible
without established enclaves of Armenians on his route over
Constantinople and Venice. He was encouraged as an accomplished
artist, his work shown in the communities and new work commissioned,
earning him the resources to continue and leaving highly original work
in his trail.
He was 24 years old when he arrived in Paris. Attracted to
analytical cubism he was soon deep in his own studies and finding his
own directions. "I entered into the brain of Euclid," he was to state
of this period in one of the frequent art manifestos of the moment. By
the spring of 1924 he was already being counted among the pioneers in
the avant-garde, participating in the "Salon des Independents" and
gaining recognition as one of the most promising of the young artists
whose further development would bear close scrutiny.
His paintings soon hung with Matisse, Picasso, and Braque. He could
be found with de Chirico, Brancusi, and Arp, with the transparencies
of Lipschitz, and alongside Leger. Befriended and warmly encouraged by
Leo Rosenberg, the enormously influential, perceptive critic and
connoisseur of the Parisian avant-garde, and by Waldemar George, whose
stature was barely less, he moved rapidly from group shows into
one-man exhibitions. An intellectual as a painter and sculptor, buoyed
by freedom of thought and experiment; these were years of very rapid
artistic gestation.
* Spatial painting
If he had earlier entered the brain of Euclid, his painting dancing
with geometrics that arrest, intersperse, and cut each other off, he
later found Einstein and was convinced the future lay in perceiving
the role of time in the extension of space. By 1928 he had developed
the theoretical foundation and the first examples of what he called
spatial painting. He explained it in these words: "When abstract
painters consider that there is no more to be done in a two
dimensional surface, painting must die in the last painting of
Mondrian or accept the only possibility of survival: to go on to the
third dimension, evolving in space." His concept and experiments in
spatial painting have been called "his main contribution to the
development of art in the first half of the twentieth century."
The place to look for riveting examples of this contribution to art
is in the excellent Ervand Kochar Museum in Yerevan. And there is no
better guide to this treasure-trove of his paintings and sculpture,
letters and memorabilia than his daughter-in-law Lala Kochar, the
director of the gallery, to whom I am indebted for the hours she spent
with me with her unique knowledge of the man, his work, and his
legacy.
The year is now 1936. Ervand Kochar has returned home. He is one of
the 1,800 intellectuals abroad who have returned to what has become
the Soviet Union. With high symbolism they have brought with them the
remains of Komitas from Paris. After the vodka and the toasts and the
commemoration is over, Kochar is wary. His probing style, his
"thinking brush," provokes controversy. The mature work, following
more than a decade of his own invention and experiment on the leading
edge of modern art in Paris, is far removed from the prevailing
orthodoxies of Stalin’s Socialist Realism.
His international stature rather than working for him makes him
highly suspect. He is at the heart of the dilemmas of modern art – the
frustration with saccharine representation and the felt need of the
artist to reveal and invite the spectator to another order of creative
thought and inspired intuition, an order of reality that lies not only
on the surface but also in the analytical mind. He is at the height of
his creative powers, and his most thoughtful work is rejected,
characterized with the empty and deadly epithet of "formalism" at the
time of the Stalinist purges. This view of his work puts him in
serious danger.
He had returned seeking to refresh himself at the roots of his own
deeply felt culture. The charge of formalism accuses him of being more
interested in the components of a composition, its color, brushwork,
texture, line, and form than in its narrative content. It is not an
idle argument. At one end is art for art’s sake, devoid of any
deliberate social content; at the other extreme is the deliberate
creation of propaganda. To argue that compositional elements are in
themselves aesthetically meaningful is to state the obvious. But must
these aesthetic elements be forced to conform to the imposed
compositional strictures of an ideology in the service of the state?
That was what was at stake.
Kochar never doubted that art has a social function, but the role of
the artist in society is to create meaningful art that arises out of
freedom of expression in all it compositional elements. He would never
abandon his strongly held belief in the greater social value of
artistic freedom.
* An art written in stone
Kochar now set out to seriously examine the roots of his Armenian
heritage. As expressed by Knarik Shahkhatuni, my knowledgeable guide
at the Kochar Museum, "From the very beginning we Armenians have had
an art written in stone." He turned to that art and to the epic tales
that hold that history.
When offered the opportunity to work with Puskin’s opera "The Stone
Garden," he created the sets and the costumes. His necessary focus on
the production values needed for the successful presentation of the
opera’s narrative may have opened a new direction in his work
acceptable to the commissars. When thereafter he was called upon to
create the cycle of illustrations for the Armenian epic of David of
Sasun he was ready. He now produced an updated version of writing in
stone that truly evoked a spirit as old as Armenia and as fresh as
today. Much of the Kochar of Paris may seem to be submerged, but
rising to the challenge, he was able to create work of multiple layers
in a balance of form and content.
If I had to choose a single Kochar painting that goes beyond
admiration into love, I would choose the warrior and his horse in his
illustrations of the Armenian national epic, David of Sasun (1939).
(See page C8.)
It is as perfect a balance as one might find in all the annals of
art; it exists in the moment when mad fury subsides and the feelings
of tenderness and compassion rise. A great and necessary, if bloody,
victory has been fought and achieved, but there is no gloating in
glory. Instead of the bugles of triumph, the concentration is on the
horrors that now must be overcome.
In the epic, David of Sasun has neither mother nor father. His horse
is in a sense his only family and beyond that in a metaphysical way it
is the personification of the nation. In his clenched right hand he
holds a mighty sword that has now been stilled, resting on his
shoulder perilously close to his neck, suggesting both vulnerability
and the escape from imminent danger. His horse to whom he is obviously
devoted and who loves him in return, nuzzles across his other
shoulder. The battle is over and David’s other hand caresses the horse
with almost infinite tenderness. In the caress he is holding back a
tear from the eye of the horse as the nation mourns the fallen, and he
is shielding the eye from sight of the horror.
* David’s statue
The Soviet Union decides to declare 1939 the jubilee year of the
Armenian epic. No artist comes forward ready to create a statue of
David to be placed in the center of Yerevan in time for the scheduled
celebrations. They argue there is little time even for a final sketch
– much less to cast and mount a statue that will become a center of
attention in Armenia and beyond. Kochar, who has been illustrating the
epic and has a very clear concept of a monumental David, volunteers to
undertake the task even as time has almost run out. He sees it as a
way to reemerge from the silencing of his voice.
Having said yes, he calls for no assistance. The plinth on which the
statue will be mounted had been constructed and has already been put
in place in the city center. He climbs up upon the plinth and surveys
the scene, measuring, envisioning, and alone with his tools and
plaster, he fashions David there, from dawn to dusk working in public
view.
It is done in 18 days, ready for the celebration. A huge,
magnificent David mounted on his beautifully rendered horse, his sword
drawn against the enemies of Armenia, has been realized. The statue
and the artist are acclaimed.
But it was not yet time to name a major street in Yerevan after him.
The envious who earlier had little to envy had not yet gotten
seriously to work, nor until now had the mediocrities in the union of
artists felt threatened.
After all, it was said, it is only made of plaster. And have you
seen the direction in which the sword is pointing? It is pointing
toward Turkey. It is provoking our peaceful neighbor.
* Stalin the hangman
It was not mentioned that on the long plinth already in place there
was only one of two directions the horse and sword might charge. The
other direction was Moscow. One can only imagine what might have been
said had it been pointed toward Stalin.
Ah, Stalin. Would it come up that Kochar while in Paris had
fashioned a bust of Stalin, and in the open surface inside the head he
had painted a hangman? Stalin, the hangman? It was probably only a
matter of time.
And why doesn’t Kochar shut up? He passes on his experience as an
artist to the youth that gather around him – his experience as a free
man in Paris and London – and he can talk about theories of art that
exploded on the scene and the manifestoes he signed or didn’t sign,
and back then when he knew everyone, the shoptalk in the ateliers and
the cafes, and doesn’t he know that the KGB is always there and is
listening too?
Kochar is lonely. He had left his wife Melineh in Paris with the
idea of returning after he had met with his mother and sister, or if
all worked out well, calling her to join him. But he found that any
correspondence abroad was prohibited to him, even to or from his wife,
and added to this isolation he was forbidden to leave.
He was sent to prison charged with anti-Soviet propaganda in 1941,
and seemed to disappear as a nonperson. After the war was over and the
Soviet Union attempted to develop more cordial relations with France,
a book was published in Moscow to be distributed at home and abroad
showing, for the period from 1900 on, the many artists born and raised
here that had lived and worked in Paris. Anyone who might have once
bought a single Metro ticket, or spent enough time there to visit the
Louvre, seemed to have been included. But not Kochar. He had
apparently been erased from history.
* On the wings of an eagle
Through the intervention with Mikoyan of some old classmates at the
Nersissian Seminary who had risen within the system and who vouched
for him, he was able to return from prison. But it took until the end
of the Stalin era and the start of the Khrushchev thaw before Kochar
could get back to serious work.
His return as a popular artist soared on the sculpted wings of the
fabulous "Eagle of Zvartnots" (1955), and he galloped once again, this
time into lasting prominence, by creating for the second time his
indomitable "David of Sasun" (1959), more charged with fury than
before. In every way it is a greater monument of the epic hero,
thoughtful in every sculpted detail and fully realized. The great
steed rises on its hind quarters well forward of the area of its
pedestal, "as Armenia is larger than the ground on which we stand and
it covers forward space for all who are not here." David holds his
sword behind him as a scythe, ready to battle not one but to engage
with a multitude. With Ararat as its background, it has become a
symbol of Yerevan and of the nation.
More sculpture and painting would follow, including the statue of
the mounted "Vartan Mamikonian" (1975), in impetuous gallop, all four
legs high above the plinth, held only by his own swirling cloud of
dust.
Of great interest is a fourth sculpture, the one Kochar’s
daughter-in-law calls "the imprisoned one." "The Muse of Cybernetics"
(1972) sits in the courtyard of the Institute of Cybernetics with
access by permission only. Kochar had grown increasingly pessimistic
in our age of nuclear bombs and the politics of mutually assured
destruction, worried that it may be only a matter of time before
madmen get to the fatal buttons. He had done a moody statue called
"Melancholy," with a torso that seems to have swallowed cities,
suggesting alienation from nature in a too-urbanized humanity. In the
new "imprisoned" statue, Melancholy is now not only urbanized but also
mechanized and computerized. The completed statute was triggered to
ask a question when anyone passed by: "Have you seen the light?" The
question was enigmatic. The "light" can mean the flash that will occur
with nuclear holocaust, or it can mean grasping what is at stake and
taking measures. They shut off the voice. Then they locked the door.
* "The Disaster of War"
An apocalyptic vision also informs a wall-sized painting, "The
Disaster of War" (1962), inviting immediate comparison to Picasso’s
"Guenerica" in form and content. The destruction in Kochar’s concept,
however, rises from the local to engulf all civilization. The scene
appears to unfold in time like a Greek tragedy, and it must be read in
layers. In a narrow space on the right are hooded figures that may
represent the chorus. To my eyes, as I studied the details of the
composition, the chorus making its pronouncements seemed to grow
larger, advancing forward with terrible tidings.
My reading of this painting is highly personal. Among the breaking
columns and the eloquent horses in their last throes, a foot crushes a
bunch of grapes as the chorus looms larger in my eyes. It has been
written that when Noah landed the ark on Ararat and let out the
animals, the next thing he did was to plant a grape vine. That foot
crushing the grapes while all else is falling, in my reading, closes
history.
But this is a painting you must read for yourself. It was all packed
up to be unveiled at a greatly anticipated exhibition of Kochar’s work
in Paris. But the Soviet government at the last minute decided
otherwise and refused to let it be shown. The exhibition opened in
Paris in 1966, eleven years after the petition calling for the
exhibition was signed by interested members of the art world,
including the critic Waldemar George, who wrote a treatise on Kochar’s
art in space. But Kochar was forbidden to go, as were his post-Paris
works.
* Art in space
There is an example of Kochar’s art in space at the modern art museum
in Paris, the Pompidou center. But what remains of the definitive work
is in the museum in Yerevan. These are the superior examples. These
are works in motion that inventively use time as integral to viewing
the multiple surfaces of single compositions.
That Kochar had an inventive mind cannot be doubted. There are
actually two patented inventions in his name; one patented in France
concerned with how to create a flame, the other in the Soviet Union
concerned with how to work with color when they have blown out your
flame. The Soviet patent is for wax-based colors that can be applied
without heat.
During his years in Paris, Kochar had five one-man shows. After he
came to the Soviet Union, it took 30 years before he had his first
one-man show. For this reviewer, the current one-man show at the
Kochar Museum may be late, but it is not too late, and it is a
revelation.
According to Lala Kochar, her father-in-law was put into creative
isolation and "everything was done to tear apart and mutilate Kochar’s
creative spirit." That he nevertheless continued to create masterworks
is evident in the beloved public sculpture and in his Yerevan studio
that has been enlarged into his museum. Upon leaving I walked to his
portrait on his easel, and next to it were his hat and his cape. I
saluted this artist of precocious and prodigious talent, and ever
since, as I have walked on the streets of Yerevan, I have had the
feeling that in that hat and cape he has been walking along with me.
* * *
Gregory Lima is the author of The Costumes of Armenian Women (Tehran,
1974). His art criticism appeared frequently in the pages of Tehran’s
leading English-language daily, Kayhan International, which he started
in 1959. He lives in Patterson, N.Y., and Yerevan.
**************************************** ***********************************
8. Ardavazt finds a rare "Lost Letter"
by Aram Kouyoumdjian
For its latest stage offering, the AGBU Ardavazt Theatre Company has
unearthed an obscure 19th-century satire about deceit – of both the
personal and political kind. The troupe is performing Romanian
playwright Ion Luca Caragiale’s "A Lost Letter" (in an Armenian
translation by Berge Fazlian and Levon Torossian) for six weekends at
its subterranean venue in Pasadena, California. The spirited
production captures the modern-day relevance of the play’s themes but
is hampered by the structural flaws of Caragiale’s script.
The "lost letter" of the play is an amorous note that Stefan
Tipatescu, a regional governor, has written to Zoe Trahanache, the
wife of the local party chief, Zaharia. The secrecy of their
years-long affair is jeopardized when the letter falls into the hands
of a political opponent, one Nae Catavencu, who threatens to make it
public unless the party endorses him for a parliamentary seat.
Zoe, who has everything to lose, single-mindedly sets out to
retrieve the letter by securing for Catavencu the party’s nomination
with backing from her husband, as well as from her lover. This she
manages to do with surprising ease by the end of Act I, leaving nary a
tension to carry the play through intermission.
The twist that should have left viewers hanging between the acts
comes after the intermission, when the party committee refuses to
support Catavencu and opts for another candidate (who has similarly
blackmailed his way to political success). While this twist sets up
an intriguing premise – how will Zoe handle the situation when it has
turned unexpectedly complicated? – its ultimate resolution proves
lame, as Catavencu himself loses the incriminating letter, which finds
its way back to Zoe.
Krikor Satamian’s brisk and lively direction energizes the
production but cannot overcome the text’s key failings as satire –
namely, its weak humor and its lack of a moral center. While Zoe
functions as the play’s ostensible heroine, she hardly serves as a
paragon of virtue, having been unfaithful in her marriage. In the
same vein, her denunciations of unworthy politicians come across as
hypocritical following her willingness to quickly dispatch one of them
to parliament for the sake of her own self-preservation.
As Zoe, Maro Ajemian has fine moments, while Satamian exudes an
effortlessly funny presence as the befuddled Zaharia. A seasoned
stage actor, Satamian wisely underplays the overwritten part;
unfortunately, several of his fellow actors (in the nearly all-male
cast) gravitate to broad comedy instead, sacrificing nuance along the
way. Among the exceptions is Aram Muratyan, whose comic turn as a
lawyer of questionable competence and ethics adds to his growing list
of winning performances, both on the Ardavazt stage – previously in
Shahe Mankerian’s "Vort" (Worm) – and at the Luna Playhouse.
Sold-out audiences are supporting "A Lost Letter" and Ardavazt’s
ongoing commitment to Armenian-language productions. The troupe has
not only presented several plays by the great Armenian satirist Hagop
Baronian, it has taken on a number of translated works, especially
farces by such masters as Georges Feydeau. When viewed in this
context, "A Lost Letter" may be deemed a fitting choice for the
company. While it affords a rare and intriguing look at Romanian
theater specifically, it articulates a social and political critique
that resonates universally.
A Caragiale experiment, then, was surely worth trying. It remains
doubtful, however, whether it bears repeating.
************************************** *************************************
9. We’re welcome to see ourselves in Pari Kaloosd
by Betty Panossian-Ter Sargssian
Pari Kaloosd (Bari Galoost or Welcome) is one of the shows of the
current theatrical season in Armenia that has almost always succeeded
to open up to a full audience.
The farce, directed by Vahan Badalyan, begins even before the
curtain opens with panicked voices coming from another room.
Who are its characters? Us, from all corners of Armenia and the
diaspora, with our prides and prejudices against each other, complexes
and vulnerabilities, a bit exaggerated for the stage, but true to our
nature.
The curtain opens at an isolated waiting room in what a sign says is
the Los Angeles International Airport. It is in this only setting that
three characters emerge one after the other, each in a mood worse than
the other’s. Each has been declined entry into the United States and
is furious about it.
First appears Kaloosd (Mikayel Poghossyan), an animated man in his
sixties from Armenia, who a short while later is joined by an
irritated middle-aged man coming in from the restrooms. Kaloosd is
quite aggressive and soon begins to calm himself down in a very
Eastern manner, by bossing around the other man – in Armenian, of
course. It soon becomes clear that Kaloosd’s companion, middle-aged
Azad (Ara Deghtrikyan) is also an Armenian, from Iran.
The Armenian mosaic is completed by another furious passenger, Sako
(Robert Haroutiounyan), who appears to be an Armenian from Beirut in
his late sixties.
There is no need for the three Armenians to present themselves. It
becomes clear who’s who even before they open their mouths. At every
turn of their encounter, the three characters have plenty of reason to
quarrel. Their verbal sparring, which is spiced up by their three
distinctive dialects, sometimes threatens to turn into a street fight,
although halfway through the farce it becomes clear that Kaloosd and
Azad are soon to be khnamies (in-laws). The conflicts that arise
between these three distinctive types of Armenians on the one hand,
and between them and the airport authorities on the other, mount to
unexpected, larger-than-life situations. Toward its end, the farce
succeeds in achieving the impossible: it unites all the Armenians
against the foreign forces, here the airport authorities. The three
heroes step on the Armenian soil sprinkled by Kaloosd (an unmistakable
reference to an episode from Armenian history, King Arshak II at the
Persian court).
But as soon as the three characters feel the power of the soil, the
farce ends in a rather off-putting Armenian manner: Kaloosd, Azad, and
Sako decide to institute their own laws in the airport and?.?.?. start
smoking.
Humor, especially of the verbal variety, is abundant, as the
characters make free use of puns with different Armenian dialects and
accents.
An entertainment rather than a state-of-the-art production Pari
Kaloosd touches lightly on the reasons behind our differences, our
complexes, and our views. The title itself suggests another of the
puns put in use in the farce. The Armenians from Iran and Lebanon have
been weighed up by the one from Armenia, Kaloosd, who soon enough
begins imparting subtle moral lessons of patriotism. Although at first
sight he has the most enraged and outlaw nature of the three, the
farce ends showing the "good Kaloosd", "Pari Kaloosd."
Pari Kaloosd surely is a farce to be seen and to see ourselves in.
********************************************* ******************************
10. Robert Mangurian builds Noah’s Ark in Glendale
The architect behind the hip addition to the Alex Pilibos School
by Tamar Kevonian
It’s unusual to find an architect who didn’t set out to be an
architect but fell into it by accident. Yet that is exactly what
Robert Mangurian did and now finds himself at the top of his game –
where he’s considered an architect’s architect.
While attending Stanford University, where he took general studies
courses, he decided to take two years off and travel in Europe with
his brother. They purchased a Citroen for $800 that barely
accommodated their belongings and did their grand tour through the
continent. They were successful musicians, who played and sang folk
songs. They were not impressed by the yet unknown Bob Dylan and took
no particular note of architecture.
After his return to the States, Mangurian transferred to University
of California at Berkeley, where he decided to study architecture.
"I’m not really interested in architecture, but I do it," says
Mangurian. "I fell into it. I like the history part better. Some
people are driven to the thing because of a building," he explains.
"People say I do it with a passion, but I would do anything with a
passion."
Robert Mangurian first moved to Los Angeles in the 1940’s from
Baltimore, when his father was hired by the Northrop Corporation to
work on Jack Northrop’s flying wing – a fixed-wing aircraft
configuration that was eventually utilized by the B-2 stealth bomber
of the 1980s.
"I was the first Armenian to live in Glendale," he jokes. The
family’s only acquaintance lived in Pasadena, and his father decided
Glendale was a central location to his job in Hawthorne. Two years
later they moved to Pacific Palisades, which Mangurian considers a
slight improvement over Glendale because of its proximity to the
beach. "It was a loser place. There was no city. Your mother had to
drive you everywhere," he complains. The memory still fresh after all
these years. "I lusted after a city."
Not surprisingly, he chose to start his career in New York City,
where he joined the firm of Conklin + Rossant Architects. They were
considered the "upstarts from Harvard." They were famous for the
redevelopment of lower Manahattan and the revival of the "new town"
concept with their design of Reston, Virginia.
Reston was the first modern planned community in America that
incorporated higher density housing to conserve open space, as well as
mixed use areas for industry, business, recreation, education, and
housing. This first job set the tone for his career, because it’s
where he met Lester Walker and Greg Hodgetts – both graduates of Yale,
the most prestigious place to study architecture at the time.
It was a heady time for young Mangurian. The three young architects
formed their own firm, Studio Works Architects, and moved into their
offices above Andy Warhol’s Factory. "I didn’t have the Yale education
but got it through association. I don’t know where I’d be today
without them," he humbly proclaims.
Several of Studio Works’ projects were notable enough to earn awards
and earn them a reputation. The collaboration didn’t last very long,
and each went his own way in a few short years. However, the effect
they had on each other was long lasting. "Those days are what got me
hooked to architecture. I got lucky," says Mangurian.
By 1970 Walker became disenchanted with New York City and moved to
Woodstock, while Hodgetts moved to Los Angeles and began teaching at
UCLA. Mangurian remained in New York but would fly west to California
help Hodgetts on his projects.
"New York had lost its glamour by then," he says. In 1976 he
received the McKim Scholarship to study at the American Academy in
Rome – one of the leading overseas centers for independent study and
advanced research in the arts and humanities.
The defining characteristic at the Academy was the context in which
it existed. "New York was hip in art since the 1950’s," he explains
but design was sorely lacking. "There were no new buildings with
design of note until five years ago. Only 4-5 buildings and that’s it.
Meanwhile, in Italy design was going crazy."
It was the perfect venue for an architect who wanted to push the
envelope. "Going to Rome – all of it was – it sort of nailed it for
me." Finally Robert Mangurian found his love for his profession.
Throughout his career, Mangurian has taught architecture at such
notable schools as UCLA, Rice University, Yale, Harvard and Southern
California Institute of Architecture – – where he served as Director
of the Graduate Program.
It was through this aspect of his professional life that he came
into contact with the Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School. His
former student, Christopher Aykanian, who was familiar with the
school’s need for expansion and an architect to orchestrate it,
brought the two parties together. "We met with Vicken [Yacoubian, the
principal,] and agreed that you needed a space for these kids that
would be hip." There was also the concern that the school and the kids
were too insular – always a fear for the children of ethnic
immigrants.
Robert Mangurian’s own family came to the United States in the late
1800s and settled in the Boston area. His father attended MIT and
married a Mayflower blueblood. The insular quality expressed by the
Armenian community toward his mother precipitated a resentment and
eventual estrangement of the elder Mangurian.
As a result, Robert and his two brothers grew up with little or no
contact with the growing Armenian community in California. Although
proud of his mother and the need to make clear that he is a "red
blooded American," it was the belief that one must embrace their
culture but be able to connect to the rest of the world that he
expressed in the architectural design of the Alex Pilibos School.
The project was a particular challenge because of the lack of land.
The brilliance of the design is that it connects and utilizes the
existing buildings, while maintaining the space for the children’s
playground. But the true genius of the building is that it is shaped
like an ark, Noah’s Ark, drawing upon the Armenian culture’s ancient
ties to its history and biblical reference.
In Rome Mangurian experienced the great respect the Italians have
toward architects, unlike in the United States. He experienced the
same expression of respect to the profession from Armenians, making
his first foray into the Los Angeles community a positive one. "I was
sort of moved by the reaction. It was the first time we’ve encountered
this peculiar grouping of people that are spread over the world and
are really connected."
In the 1940’s Glendale was a very different city. "My brothers and I
hated it," he says, but things have changed. His most recent project
is the community center for the Armenian Cultural Foundation adjacent
to St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church in Glendale. It will be a
gathering place for the area’s youth with a café, meeting places and
outdoor gardens. "It’s great to be connected with people adventurous
enough to leap frog over mediocrity," he proclaims.
"It was an amazing experience," chimes in Mary-Ann Ray, his partner
in architecture and in life since 1984. She sees the Armenian
situation as exciting and positive and sees these two projects as
providing positive models that other minority cultures and diasporans
can adopt.
Mangurian and Ray are currently working on a collaborative project
to teach in Beijing, China, bringing together students from several
prestigious schools in the U.S. and China. "That’s a lot of why we’re
in China. We put ourselves in a minority place. That’s why we got
along with Vicken." Mangurian and Ray understood their client and the
ultimate audience of their work and gave them exactly what they
needed.
"There’s always this thing – I guess it’s in your blood – of being a rebel."
************************************ ***************************************
11. Stories of Armenian cinema unveiled: Garineh
Garineh, a musical comedy produced in 1967 (94 min, color), is the
only musical made by Hyefilm. It is based on the operetta "Leblebiji
Horhor Agha" (Horhor Agha, the roasted-chickpea seller), by the
Armenian composer Dikran Choukhajian.
The film is inspired by the lifestyle of Western Armenians living in
the Ottoman Empire at the end of 19th century. And in an interesting
twist of events, "most of the cast members of this musical are Western
Armenians themselves," Anna Terjanian, the host and writer of the
program Mi filmi badmutiun (The making of a film) on Armenia TV, told
the Armenian Reporter. In addition to the director, Arman Manarian,
the lead actors Arman Godigian, Vartouhi Varteresian, and Jirair
Avedissian are Western Armenians too. Another Western Armenian is one
of the screenwriters, Yervant Manarian, and that is why "the dialogues
are very authentic. The way the actors speak, their accents, are
spontaneous and genuine. It is the way they talk in real life, the
life they once had lived, and which completely differed from that of
Soviet Armenia. In a word, those characters and their lifestyles were
very dear to their heart," Anna explained.
Most of the leading roles are sung by the diva of Armenian classical
singing, Kohar Kasbarian (another Western Armenian) and opera singer
Dikran Levonian.
A typical eastern town was needed as the set of Garineh. "Although
the setting of Dikran Choukhajian’s original work was a small town in
Western Armenia, somehow the filmmakers pictured Garineh to be set in
Constantinople." There wasn’t even a single street in Armenia to match
the picture of that town. So a town was built in the same place where
Hyefilm is now located. "It was sort of a cartoon town, with cardboard
houses, church and town square, with sketched sloping doors and
windows, which they didn’t even try to make look real. It all gave the
whole musical a cheerful air," Anna said. The rest of the shooting was
completed at Lake Sevan. "With its white houses and clear blue waters
and sky, Garineh is a very light and breezy musical."
Garineh is the daughter of a humble and conservative leblebiji
(roasted chickpea seller), who forbids her union to the young man she
loves, a representative of the upper middle class of that time. It is
a wonder that the Soviet authorities permitted the production of this
musical, because its portrayal of classes did not conform to the ideas
of communism. "Here the bourgeois class is intellectual and
progressive, while the working class is the conservative and
conformist," explained Anna.
The production team of The Making of a Film discovered one of the
off-set love stories in the history of Armenian cinema. "The leading
actress, Lita Haroutiounian, is a very charming young lady and we
wondered why she was never again filmed in other movies. Then we found
out that she wasn’t even a professional actress; the role of Garineh
was her debut. Then the film director had fallen in love with her,
married her, and ordered her to be a typical housewife," thus crashing
her dreams of one day turning into a famous actress.
Lita Haroutiounian is not the only nonprofessional actress on the
set of Garineh. Many of its cast members were from different
professions and appeared on screen that one time. One of them is an
opera singer; another is a streetcar driver.
Putting together bits of information on Garineh was not an easy
task. There isn’t much archival material preserved and the cast and
crew members have perished or scattered around the globe. "We were
lucky to find some materials portraying the shooting process," Anna
said, adding that the leading actor, Arman Godigian passed away soon
after the film was completed, because he was sick in bed with cancer
and, although he never shows his condition in the film, he had to get
up from bed to complete the shooting process.
Being the only major Armenian musical ever, Garineh stands out in
the annals of Armenian cinema. "People have always loved its songs,
and have kept them in mind," concluded Anna.
Garineh airs on Armenia TV starting Monday, March 26, following Mi
filmi badmutiun.
************************************** *************************************
12. Armenian film history on TV: Mi Filmi Badmutiun blows the dust away
by Betty Panossian-Ter Sargssian
Every other Monday a documentary program titled Mi Filmi Badmutiun
brings the viewers of Armenia TV the genesis of the most popular films
of Armenian cinema.
The trailer of the program shows its host and writer Anna Terjanyan
blowing away the dust gathered over decades on the rolls of these
films. And that’s exactly what Mi Filmi Badmutiun accomplishes, aiming
to bring the restored Hyefilm movies as close to the public as
possible in a motivating, yet entertaining manner.
Since over decades most of these movies have been seen by Armenian
audiences, the program had to stimulate fresh interest in the restored
versions. "Every older Armenian in Armenia has most probably watched
these films a thousand times. They know them by heart. So we felt the
need to add some spice to these films beside their fresher colors and
clearer sound and image and better technical quality," Anna Terjanyan
told the Armenian Reporter.
The program also has the mission to bring the treasures of Armenian
cinema to a younger audience. "The new generation hasn’t even seen
these Armenian films."
And it surely is a challenge getting young Armenians to watch these
movies. While Hollywood productions flood the Armenian television
channels and viewers, Armenian movie productions fall far behind with
their withered colors and broken images. Even the restored Hyefilm
films face tough competition. Therefore the need to spice them up was
pressing.
"We were surprised by the interest the program found in the Armenian
public. It is truly rewarding when people approach me and say that
their 14-year-old daughter has really enjoyed watching a certain
film," Anna said. "My five-year-old daughter is humming the melodies
of Tigran Mansouryan, and I couldn’t be happier."
Mi Filmi Badmutiun is an ode to Armenian art house films. All of
these stories and memories have been written nowhere; they are to be
digged out of the dust which decades and years have put on them.
The program also brings back to life different chapters of a film
which for different reasons have not been included in the final
variant. It reveals backstage relationships, conflicts, and
difficulties. The program thus turns out to be not only a valuable
archive for information about the film, but also an account of the
general atmosphere of an era.
It is not easy to make the making of a film decades after the film
has been produced. Months before the program was first aired, the
production team went through a long preparation period, trying to work
through such difficulties as finding cast members of a given film.
"Most of the actors live abroad. Actually just about 40 percent of the
cast and crew members currently live in Armenia. And one of the real
challenges our production team had to face was finding them. We
consider ourselves lucky if we can reach the 20 percent of those who
have worked on a certain film," explained Anna.
"Sometimes we cannot find even a single picture of otherwise famous
film directors Their families or what has remained of them live
abroad, mostly in the United States. One wonders what happened to the
whole archive of that person, who has for years served Armenian
cinema."
Because of these difficulties, some episodes are not all-encompassing.
There are also cases when after months of research and preparation
an episode is aired, and then, "suddenly, out of nowhere another
detail comes to the surface and it’s a pity that we had missed it."
The production team also has another problem. The surviving crew
members of most of these film are elderly. "So we have to hurry," said
Anna, adding that Shahoum Ghazaryan, the leading actor of Hin Oreri
Yerge, passed away only two weeks after being interviewing for Mi
Filmi Badmutiun.
Anna thinks highly of her whole production team. The director of the
program, Rouben Grigoryan, is a film director, and "he makes a great
contribution to the success of the program. He has lived most of what
we try to present to the audience. He has contributed to the making
of most of the films as the director’s assistant. He has been there,
on the set, knows most of the people involved."
The episodes of Mi Filmi Badmutiun are prepared as soon as enough
information is gathered on a certain Hyefilm film. The production team
coordinates its work with the restoration section of CS Films.
Sometimes they miss a date with the public. "The restoration and
revival of films is faster-paced than our program," explained Anna.
The production team has a list of 50 most interesting or valuable
Hyefilm films. The list was compiled by the public and acclaimed by
film critics.
After watching Mi Filmi Badmutiun, one cannot help but love the film
about to be screened on television. "I think that this program takes
its life from our love toward Armenian cinema. The question is not
which film we like best. It is just that we love Armenian cinema
overall. To me the most important issue is for Armenian cinema to gain
back its audience," Rouben Grigoryan told the Armenian Reporter. Since
1981 he has been working at Hyefilm, making his way up to the top.
While writing the stories of the films, Anna sees the original,
unrestored variants. The difference is amazing. In the originals,
night cannot be distinguished from day. "Until now we haven’t really
seen color in Armenian cinema, and we have always thought that it is a
characteristic of our cinema to be dark and gloomy," she said.
"Usually people think that the worst the quality of an Armenian
film, the better it is. But we show the films the way they were
produced. We just give them their real form, the form they were
supposed to have, but unfortunately could not, because of financial
and technological limitations."
The program also aims to honor those who have served Armenian cinema
without being praised for it, and who do not appear in the scenes or
the credits.
"I feel very happy and content when our program remembers a
forgotten name," Rouben Grigoryan said.
Mi Filmi Badmutiun is aired on Armenia TV every other Monday.
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