SINGING OUT AGAINST GENOCIDE
By Angela Hokanson

Glendale News Press, CA
April 22 2008

Armenian clubs from throughout the school district put on a
performance at

Published: Last Updated Tuesday, April 22, 2008 11:33 PM PDT Armenian
students celebrated their culture — and remembered the tragedy of
the Armenian Genocide — through speeches, poems, music and dance
during a genocide commemoration Tuesday night at Glendale High School.

The program was one of several remembrance events taking place in
Glendale this week to mark the 93rd anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide, the killings of about 1.5 million Armenians that began in
1915 in the then-Ottoman Empire.

It was the eighth annual genocide commemoration event organized by
student members of the Armenian clubs from high schools and middle
schools within the Glendale Unified School District.

"It just shows unity," Rubina Vartanians, 15, said about the various
schools coming together to remember the genocide.

In one performance, a group of girls from Glendale High, dressed in
royal blue skirts and tops, performed a traditional Armenian dance.

The slow, somber song is about an Armenian soldier who misses his
homeland, said Christine Garibian, 15, one of the dancers.

As the dance came to a close, the girls were joined on stage by
three boys — one pretending to be an Armenian soldier, the other
two pretending to be Turkish soldiers. The teens acted out a scene
in which the Armenian boy is beat up and carried off stage by the
two Turks. A sound imitating a gunshot was heard as if from a distance.

"It brings an element of tragedy to it," Christine said about the
closing scene of the routine.

Clark Magnet High School students Serli Nazarian, 14, and Meenely
Nazarian, 15, played a piano duet of Aram Khachaturian’s "Saber Dance,"
and other students read poems and speeches.

The show also featured a video filmed and edited by Crescenta Valley
High student Edrick Sarkissian in which students and community members
discussed what Armenians in Southern California could do to honor
their past and respect the plight of their ancestors.

Many of the participants said the event was as much about looking to
the future — and potentially altering the course of history still
to come — as it was about looking back.

"If there is one genocide that is not recognized, there may be other
genocides that are not recognized," said Vanui Barakezyan, 16.

Vanui was participating in a skit that was expected to be performed
later in the show about the importance of obtaining official
recognition for the Armenian Genocide.

"The message is we won’t give up fighting for what we believe,"
Vanui said about the skit.

Several speakers, including school board President Joylene Wagner and
Glendale schools Supt. Michael Escalante, affirmed the importance of
recognizing historical events like genocides as a prerequisite for
preventing similar events in the future.

"Through the recognition process we begin the process of changing
the future," Escalante said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress