ARMENIAN DANCE WITH A ROUSING KICK
Pamela Squires

Washington Post
Monday, September 29, 2008; Page C08
United States

The Sayat Nova Dance Company puts on one heck of good show. The
Boston-based Armenian folk dance troupe helped the local community
celebrate Armenian independence day with a rousing program Saturday
at a packed Lisner Auditorium.

Sayat Nova is a community-based, nonprofit organization. The 61
dancers’ technical level is a far cry from the snap and crackle of
professional folk-dance troupes such as the State Dance Ensemble
of Armenia, on which this one patterns its style. Yet Sayat Nova
director Apo Ashjian has been to Armenia to study with State Dance
Ensemble choreographers, and it shows. Sayat Nova is an exceptionally
well rehearsed group, with impeccable ensemble work and tasteful
costumes. Every arm is at the same angle and every knee flexed at
the exact same height, giving performances the wow factor critical
to the folk dance genre.

The women appeared to float through the complicated changing
formations, stately in crowns and long dresses trimmed with heavy
brocade. The men, arms linked, moved as a single, powerful entity. Such
line dancing may look simple, but it is not by any means, for quality
of movement must also match, be it tautness in a locked-knee bounce
or just the right rebound from a dip.

It would have been helpful to screen an English translation of the
poems by Sayat-Nova, the 18th-century Armenian troubadour for whom the
company is named, that were read in Armenian intermittently throughout
the evening. Still, the success of the evening was in some ways a
foregone conclusion. For the largely Armenian diaspora audience,
the sounds and sights were laden with meaning and the air crackled
with powerful emotions.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress