Photolure
Ginosyan(right) and Davtyan are eager to revive Armenian traditional dances
The Armenian Ministry of Education and Science together with a few Armenian ethnographers plan to initiate a new national program from September in secondary schools, teaching courses in Armenian traditional dances.
“It was planned to have dance courses even a year ago, but a flu was spread at schools, and there were some other obstacles, too,” says Gagik Ginosyan, specialist in traditional dances, art director of ‘Karin’ traditional song-dance troupe.
Ginosyan says it is important to include ethnic dances in school curricula because even some heads of dance troupes do not know how to dance those dances properly or are not aware of their significance. For example, they do not know that there are special mourning dances and joy dances, dances symbolizing unity, war, lifestyle.
Ginosyan’s colleague Norayr Davtyan, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the State Orchestra of Armenian Folk Instruments of Armenia, notices serious shortcomings in the sphere of folk instruments, too. He is seriously worried that there are no applications, for example, for taking courses in the traditional string instrument, the oud at the Komitas Yerevan State Conservatory this year. Only one student has applied to learn the tar and one for the kanon.
“People mainly apply to enter the department of duduk – 15 applicants per year, because they know that they can earn money playing this instrument both at happy and sad occasions. And they do not want to play oud because it provides only 35,000 drams ($94) salary (as a teacher),” Davtyan says.
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