Today during a meeting with journalists, Sona Meloyan, the secretary of the Theatrical Figures’ Union of Armenia, and Ara Khzmalyan, the head of the National Theatrical Creative Association of Armenia and the head of the Division of Preserving, Scientific Processing, and Digitizing Archive Documents, Matenadaran, presented what festivals and cultural events were in store for the Armenian audience in 2012.
Thus, from February 29 through March 4, the festival of one-person shows, Armmono, will take place. As Sona Meloyan informed, they marked the 10th anniversary of the festival, “There will be participants from Poland, Lithuania. Around 27 performances will be staged.” On the World Theater Day, March 27, the annual awards ceremony of young directors and actors, Artavazd, will take place.
According to Ara Khzmalyan, 30 theatrical bands, also from the regions and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, will participate in the Theater X Festival starting February 12.
S. Meloyan alerted that the Shakespeare Festival to take place in the fall was under threat, since there wasn’t sufficient funding, “$50.000 is an expensive treat, but that festival has been the only festival, the performances of which have been watched not by 200 intellectuals, but the public at large.” A. Khzmalyan mentioned that the reason for that is the lack of financing traditions; however, he didn’t have any reason for complaint, since the majority of their performances were financed by the Ministry of Culture.
Talking about the regional problems, Ara Khzmalyan argued that the focus of culture was Yerevan, “Our association prepares a special cooperation project, along with the local administration of Vanadzor, the purpose of which is to increase cultural activity not by one performance, but by expanding direct communication between cultural figures.” According to the spokesperson’s data, main problems of the regional theaters are related to technical equipment, heating. To reaffirm a poor condition of the regional theaters, S. Meloyan informed that regardless of people’s interest in the theater, the Gavar Theater had become a pigpen, “There is a stove in the first row, the stage is broken and one is compelled to be an acrobat-actor.”
Talking about the outflow of actors from theaters to TV series, S. Meloyan said that it was hard to fix a rehearsal these days, since actors spent their time mainly on acting in TV series, “And it is understandable, because they get 42.000 AMD at best.” Mr. Khzmalyan added that a question “Is everybody stupid in this country?” arises while watching TV series.
Louse SUKIASYAN
