Armenian Dance Teacher from Japan: Interview with Azat Gharibyan

Do our folk dances speak to the hearts of the Japanese?

They were totally unknown to them, but they loved them very much and demand us to perform them again.

How often do you have performances? How many students and how many dancers do you have?

Once every two years there is the performance of the school, and in-between them, there is the performance of the group. Our dancing group is combined and the number of participants depends on the performance. Competition is very great in Japan. There are more than 100 ballet schools only in our town, but people already know us. We are very active; we participate in different competitions and have certain achievements. We have won second place in the Japanese dance competitions seven times. We have 60 students. There are no age restrictions. I have also a separate “Miss Class,” where there are 11 people — women over 40.

But do you prepare professional dancers?

Today, one of our students continues his education in Germany, the other in the Czech Republic. A 12-year-old student has entered Hamburg ballet school; the other has entered a Novosibirsk school. We try not to keep them with ourselves, in order for them to be able to perform on the world stage.

This time you have come together with a beautiful Japanese girl.

Utako Hanada is from Fukuoka. She participated in the Kyushu international competition, where I coordinate the education and work abroad. She had the opportunity to come to Armenia and to appear with our ballet group in the corps de ballet of the performances of “Spartacus” and “Gayane.” This is a symbolic participation. It would be wonderful for our ballet education especially if we organize master classes with the participation of international guest lecturers and students studying ballet in the Far East (as they are many there and they need international experience and the students studying in Europe already study in good terms).

Do you follow our ballet and ballet education? What problems do you see?

First of all, I think that the bridge between the school and the theater is very important. Starting from just the first year, they should go to work with our artists and do performances. There is no such thing now; that way is closed. We have a lack of good teachers, strong pedagogical staff and professionals. We have specialists of both folk dances and characteristic dances, who do not teach at the college now; meanwhile we need them very much. The list of the classes taught should be expanded: variations, Pilates, yoga, anatomy. I do not even speak about modern dances (we have not studied modern ballet, neither in Yerevan nor in Saint Petersburg). Unfortunately, our curriculum is very outdated. Today we cannot educate an international ballet dancer according to the system of the 1970s. Now the 12-13-year-old international ballet dancers know much more than our 16-17-year-old students. That is why at the age of 20 our students enter the theater unprepared. Ballet has become something secondary among us. One dancing generation should be better than the other one; meanwhile, today 90 percent is folk dance and only 10 percent ballet is taught there. Although there are many specialists of dance, however it seems that ballet is disappearing. There is no change of generation. We should use our resources abroad and to bring students as well. In short, Armenian ballet education needs revision.