FRESNO — Dr. Vartan Matiossian and Artsvi Bakhchinyan will present a lecture on their new book A Woman of the World: Armen Ohanian, the ‘Dancer of Shamakha,’ in a virtual presentation on Saturday, September 17, at 10 a.m. (Pacific time)/1 p.m. (Eastern time)/9 p.m. (Yerevan time). The presentation is part of the Fall 2022 Lecture Series of the Armenian Studies Program.
A Woman of the World is Volume 16 in the Armenian Series of The Press at California State University, Fresno.
A Woman of the World is a fascinating chronicle of the life of dancer and author Armen Ohanian (1888-1976). She was a well-educated woman born in an Armenian family in the Caucasus and fluent in half a dozen languages — truly a “Woman of the World,” who lived through times and places as diverse as the Russian Caucasus, the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, the Belle Époque in France, the Roaring 1920s in the United States, the early Soviet Union, and ended her days in Mexico after living an eventful life cloaked in mystery. She bridged multiple cultures as an actress in the Caucasus, a theater director in Persia, a writer in France, and a translator in Mexico. Above all she was an acclaimed dancer from Asia to Africa, from Europe to America with the monikers “dancer of Shamakha” and “the Persian dancer.” Mounting on a wave of Near and Far Eastern dances sweeping the West, she belonged to a category of dancers that conceived of choreographies nurtured by their culture of origin.
Vartan Matiossian is a historian and literary scholar with a broad range of interests in Armenian classical and modern culture. He has published extensively in Armenian, Spanish, and English, including eight books, almost two dozen translations, and several edited volumes. He is currently the executive director of the Eastern Prelacy of the Armenian Church in New York.
Artsvi Bakhchinyan is a scholar specializing in the history of the Armenian Diaspora and culture, as well as a writer and translator. He is the author, editor, and translator of some twenty books, and a frequent contributor to journals and periodicals in Armenian, Russian, and English. He is a regular correspondent for the Armenian Mirror-Spectator. He is a researcher at the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia (Yerevan).
Zoom Registration Link is: https://bit.ly/armenianstudiesohanian
