WATERTOWN — The Tekeyan Cultural Association (TCA) Boston Chapter marked the traditional Armenian Hampartzoum or Ascension holiday with a luncheon and afternoon program full of poetry, games and song on Sunday, May 5 at the Baikar Building in Watertown.
While the traditional holiday, this year on May 9, commemorates the ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven forty days after his resurrection, there are also some folk customs that Armenians would practice, perhaps inherited from pre-Christian times.
One of these customs is called vijagahan or lottery. In the program at Tekeyan, this was conducted by the very charming five-year-old Anahid Melkonian. Each participant first gave a personal item or nshan (“sign”) which was placed in a pail of water. Anahid pulled out items and for each owner, a poetically written verse or saying was simultaneously read in Armenian indicating the lot of the owner, and afterwards given to the owner.
All women who came to the event were given a crown of flowers to wear. TCA Co-chair Dr. Aida Yavshayan started the afternoon event by introducing the current executive members of her chapter, and musician Gegham Margaryan, who performed several elegant Armenian instrumental pieces on an electric keyboard.
Jeanine Shememian introduced a brief program of Armenian songs and poetry performed by two young local girls. The first was tenth-grader Alla Petrosyan from Newton Country Day School, who currently is in Voice Certificate Level 4 at the New England Conservatory of Music and is a member of their Youth Chorale Ensemble as well as the Boston Children’s Chorus. Alla, whose singing has frequently graced Armenian community events, performed three songs, Hayasdan, Mayrig, and Kez Hamar Hayasdan.
Ten-year-old Karina Sargsyan has only lived in the US for some six months now. A fifth-grade student Lincoln-Eliot Elementary School in Newton, Mass., she also attends Holy Trinity Armenian School in Cambridge. Karina at clearly and emphatically recited Yeghishe Charents’s Yes Im Anoush Hayasdani [I Love Sun-Tasting Word of Armenia] and Hovhannes Shiraz’s Mors srdi hed ashkharhn em chapel [I Measured the World with My Mother’s Heart].
