Garry Sevoyan with a partner on stage

Garry Sevoyan: Life in Ballet under Extreme Conditions

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YEREVAN-ODESSA, Ukraine — Ballet dancer and choreographer, Honored Artist of Ukraine Garry Sevoyan (born in 1968) graduated from the Baku Choreographic School in 1986 and was accepted to the Baku Academic Opera and Ballet Theater as a dancer. Since 1989 he worked at the Yerevan Academic Opera and Ballet Theater. In 1992-1993 he was a leading ballet dancer at the Kharkov Academic Opera and Ballet Theater. In 1999, he danced at the Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater as a leading soloist. Among his roles were Albert (“Giselle”), Solor (“La Bayadere”), Basil and Espada (“Don Quixote”), Young Man (“Paquita,” “Chopiniana”), Mephistopheles (“Walpurgis Night”), etc. In parallel with his work in the theater he studied at the Faculty of Choreography of the International Slavic University in Kharkov, specializing in ballet directing, teaching of choreographic disciplines.” Since 2014 he has been the head of the ballet company of Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater. In 2023 he graduated from the postgraduate program of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. He has directed a number of performances, as well as written articles in academic publications. Since 2019 he has taught at the Ushynsky South Ukrainian Pedagogical University. Sevoyan is a member of the National Choreographic Union of Ukraine and the Expert Council of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.

Garry, you have long been based in Odessa. How is artistic life in general like today in war-time Odessa?

It is actually very difficult. It is difficult to organize the working process; it is difficult to prepare new performances. I schedule the work of the ballet company by the minute. We have only one big ballet hall. When the air-raid sirens go off, the work stops, and the whole schedule is thrown off. You have to coordinate the ballet company in real time. During performances, it is even more difficult; I need to be present before the end of any performance so that in the event of an alarm I can quickly decide how to continue the performance, what can be cut without losing the context of the performance and have time to finish the performance before curfew. I am not talking about myself, whose workday lasts up to 12 hours, but the performers! During the time of anxiety, their muscles cool down. You have to warm up again and again to avoid injury. It is a traumatizing profession even in peacetime, let alone today. In addition, there is a huge psychological and moral pressure. Even if the bombardment takes place at the other end of the city, the hall shakes terribly. Just imagine when it is near. Both buildings where my mom and I live were affected one day. A drone was shot down next to the building. I woke up at night, my feet were bloody, the building’s up in smoke. All the windows were shattered. I went to my mom’s apartment, and there was a rocket hitting the mall. Even the interior doors were split in half. I had to treat my dog for a month. The dog still hears the alarm signal and immediately runs to the restroom….

I wish this terrible war would end as soon as possible and you are able to return to a normal working routine.

During this time there have been many premieres and tours. The performances continue despite the quarantine, lockdown and war. A lot of people have left, the repertoire has become very poor. We are working on new projects, but everything needs time and human resources. In order to lead a large team, each of whom is a personality, you have to set an example. You have to be a personality. There are different leaders who keep the team in fear. I believe that it is necessary to remain a decent person. I am sure it is also possible. In any case, I have been managing for more than 10 years.

Garry Sevoyan

Garry, you performed the role of princes in the classical repertoire. How do you prepare for it?

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Of course. To be a prince on stage, you have to absorb the character. It started in Yerevan, when I was first danced the role of Albert in “Giselle.” Preparation for the role began not in the theater, but at home. I was getting into the character of the prince. But I managed to do it easily, I have the blood of nakharars (a hereditary title of the highest order given to houses of the ancient and medieval Armenian nobility – A. B.) on my mother’s side.

Yes, I met your parents, Vladimir and Julieta Sevoyans (God rest their souls!) a couple of times in Yerevan, and I remember your mother told me about your ancestors. It will be interesting to learn more on this.

Dad was born in Tbilisi. My grandfather, Nikolai Javadovich Sevoyan, was a military man, a lieutenant colonel in the legendary 11th Army, which defended Transcaucasia. Once he was even the Minister of Justice of the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic. At that time, Heydar Aliyev, who later became the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and later the first president of Azerbaijan, was my grandfather’s counselor. Then my grandfather moved to Baku. He even had a memorial plaque on the alley of honor in Baku. Dad’s mom, Asya Gevorkova, died young when my father was 11 years old. Everyone in her line is in Yerevan. When the massacres of Armenians started in Baku, we went to our relatives in Yerevan, my grandmother’s sisters lived there. All of them reached a high level in society. One of them was the chief judge of Yerevan, then a prosecutor, her brother was the chairman of the Union of Theater Workers, while his aunt, Silva Mekinyan, was the former director of the Opera theater and for a long time the deputy minister of culture of Armenia. But I did not use the connections, nobody knew about it. I think Silva herself was not aware that we were relatives.

On my mom’s side, my roots are from Great Armenia and Artsakh. My mom’s dad was Ashot Hayrapetovich Manukov (formerly Manukyan), my mom’s mom is Isabella Grigorievna Bagdasarova. On her line my ancestors were priests. Once the building where we lived in Baku belonged to my grandmother’s family, there are notes of noble blood. By the way, there was an interesting story in Yerevan. My mother was at the closed market (Shooka) on Mashtots Avenue and there she met an Armenian woman from Baku. She said that she was Garry Kasparov’s aunt. Then, as usual, they started to look for common acquaintances, and the woman listed her relatives and asked if mom knows her great-aunts Susanna and Yevgenia Bagdasarovas (the latter was a military doctor, reached Berlin during the World War II and was a very famous gynecologist in Baku). My mom answered: of course, they are my aunts! It turned out that they are third cousins with mom, thus, me and Garry Kasparov are fourth cousins!

My grandfather’s side has noble blood, too, going back, as I said, to the nakharars. By the way, my mother told me that Aram Manukyan, the prime minister of the first Armenian Republic, is our ancestor. I saw a book about great Armenians with his photo therein, and I have a photo of myself performing in the opera “Anush” — it is one and the same with that of Aram Manukyan’s! My mother also said that the house opposite the former Children’s World on Abovyan Street used to belong to her grandfather.

Garry, please relate how you managed to escape during the Armenian pogroms in Baku.

Topics: Ballet

We escaped twice. The first time, two families, us and my father’s brother. We traveled via Moscow; the Baku-Yerevan train was being stoned constantly. In Moscow, representatives of the Armenian community came up to us at the train station and offered to help us with resettlement and employment. Dad refused, saying that we were going to our relatives in Yerevan. On the way, the train was 12 hours late. As we approached Tbilisi, we heard on Voice of America that there had been an earthquake in Armenia. Almost 90 percent of the passengers got off the train in Tbilisi and were sent home to the disaster zone by airplanes. The train was unmarked and sent through Azerbaijan to Yerevan. It was a terrible journey. We were the only ones in the car, the train was stopped at every station: a truck or something else blocked the tracks. The train was stormed and stoned at the stops. When I called my classmate and childhood friend Yasha Vartanov from Yerevan, he sounded as if he had heard a ghost. He thought I was killed.

Two months after our arrival we were sent back as they said: “Go back, everything calmed down.” After we came back, it started again. With Yasha Vartanov we were in the theater when an angry mob invaded the theater and demanded to hand over the Armenians working there. They were told that there are no Armenians in the theater, and Yasha and I left the theater late at night through another exit, and after that I never returned to the theater.

My parents didn’t take anything with them like the first time: this time they thought they would go again for a couple of months. My uncle didn’t want to go to Yerevan anymore. It was very difficult for him to leave for the second time, he was beaten with sticks. He applied for permanent residence in America and has been living there since 1991.

Garry Sevoyan

It is known that there were also Armenians among the founders of ballet art of Azerbaijan. Who do you remember among them?

Well, firstly, one of the founders of the opera house was an oil magnate, Armenian Mailov (Mailyan). You probably know the legend of its creation: Daniil Mailov bet a friend that he would build the theater in 11 months, in time for the next visit of a Russian opera diva. He sponsored the construction of the opera house, which was popularly called Mailovsky.

Then there were many Armenians in the theater that I caught. First of all, Lev Vaganovich Avakov-Leonov, the founder of the ballet studio at the House of Officers. All the dancers went through his studio; they even starred in the children’s musical movie “The Lion Left Home.” Lev Vaganovich was the head of the ballet troupe and assistant director. He devoted his whole life to the development of the art of Azerbaijan. When I came to the theater, he was over 80, but was practicing periodically. When the tragic events began, he disappeared, then he was found murdered.

Another talented dancer and teacher was Volodya Pletnev. Despite his Russian name, he had a good command of his native Armenian language. He brought up a whole constellation of soloists. I could talk about him for a long time, we were friends. He passed away early, unable to withstand the theater intrigues. He was just over 40.

A very talented artist Rafik Grigoryan was a leading soloist of the theater. When I joined the theater, he was no longer working. Then being already in Odessa, I came across a video recording of the performance “1001 Nights,” where Rafik Grigoryan dances, but in the credits, there is another surname (I think – Grigoriev), and instead of the name of another Armenian dancer, Pavlik Mikayelyan, it is written Radik Zakirov. They are trying to erase the memory of us.

The mentioned Yasha (Yakov) Vartanov later settled in Israel. We lost contact with him for a long time. We found each other in 1995. Since then he came to Odessa to visit me several times.

Stella Chernova (maiden name Mkrtchyan), a graduate of Baku dance school, also performed in Baku, and since 1993 she worked for us in Odessa. By the way, she was my partner in “Carmen Suite.”

There were also other Armenians among dancers and ballerinas, with not Armenian surnames….

Unfortunately, you did not work in Armenian ballet in its best times. Nevertheless, did these years give you something and what are your memories of working with Armenian artists?

I worked in Yerevan for almost seven years. To say that times were difficult is not to say anything. I have partly talked about this in previous answers. But my first premieres in leading roles were in Yerevan. I am very grateful to my teacher Hovhannes Divanyan, who not only prepared the roles with me, but also showed me by his personal example what an artist should be – intelligent, noble, decent. We are still friends. I don’t want to remember bad things. I am now a citizen of Armenia. It is funny: after living so many years in Yerevan, I did not get citizenship, I had a Soviet passport, I was a refugee. And now I got it in two months. Before that I had to leave, become an honored artist of Ukraine, for 15 years to be almost the only leading actor of the Odessa Opera Theater, to become a ballet director, to stage seven performances, including “Masquerade” to the music of Khachaturian, to receive an award from the Union of Armenians of Ukraine for popularization of Armenian culture. It is rightly said that no prophet is accepted in his own country.

My daughter Victoria Sevoyan, now a leading ballerina of the Chuvash State Opera and Ballet Theater in Cheboksary, was born in Yerevan, at Margaryan hospital. We lived then at my parents’ place on Sverdlov Street, there was electricity there. Then we lived in the opera house, the first six months – in the dressing room. In August 2022, on the day of mom’s death, 12 hours before, my daughter gave birth to my grandson: he is one year and 20 months old now. We did not tell Vika for a long time that grandma had died. Unfortunately, because of the war, I still haven’t seen my grandson. And I saw my daughter three years ago, when I traveled 2500 kilometers by car to attend her wedding.

I wish Victoria good luck and that the war ends soon and you can travel to each other. And to Armenia too…

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