Armenia: Folk dancing breaks out on the street

‘Karin’, the traditional song & dance ensemble founded and directed by Gagik Ginosyan, a prominent folk dance maître, has recently come up with an interesting initiative. Since 2011, ensemble members have been travelling around the towns and villages of Armenia and Karabakh, holding folk song & dance demo performances that any interested individual is welcome to join. The initiative is being called ‘Let’s dance Armenian-style.’

Folk dance lovers gather in Yerevan’s squares and parks from time to time. 

Felix Kocharyan, a software engineer, joined the ‘Let’s dance Armenian-style’ project after his close friends started to periodically attend those events:

“Once, I made a plan with my friends and joined them one Friday. Since I still had to learn how to dance, I thought it would be difficult to stand side by side with experienced dancers, but it turned out to be much easier than I’d expected.”

For Felix, dances aren’t just entertainment, but rather a way to complement the knowledge of national traditions: “Dancing has been my hobby since childhood. I’ve always envied those who could do folk dances. But I’ve never managed to go and learn it myself. For me, the national dances are primarily the history of our nation, and I would like to carry that history and culture too.”

‘Let’s dance Armenian-style’ are demo dance lessons in which participants are not just taught dance steps, but also the essence of these dances.

This format of folk dance promotion has turned into a kind of movement, setting an example of how to kindle the youth’s interest through national dances in present-day reality.