Articles

Barekentan Festivities

Barekentan Festivities: Living “the good life”

By Shakeh Major Tchilingirian

Grapevine, Summer 2021 (pp. 2-3).

In folk culture, Armenians considered Boon Barekentan «տրաքելու օր», “the day to explode” eating, drinking, dancing and partying hard. It is on Sunday, the day before the start of Great Lent, the beginning of forty days of fasting for self-reflection and spiritual purification.

Weisheit, Anmut und Kraft

Weisheit, Anmut und Kraft in den armenischen Volkstänzen entdecken Neue Ausdrucksformen - alte Glaubensinhalte

Von Shakeh Major-Tchilingirian

Choretaki, Feb 17, 2021

"In allem Leben gibt es Tanz“, schreibt Komitas (1869-1935), der berühmte Priester, Musikologe und Gründer der staatlichen Musikhochschule in Armenien. In der Tat hat der Tanz schon immer zum Menschen gehört, als bedeutsames Ritual, feierlicher und gemeinschaftlicher Übermittler gesellschaftlicher Sinngebung und kulturelle Ausdrucksform. Komitas erklärt, dass „die Seele nationaler Musik aus der Gesamtheit der Formen besteht, die eine Nation instinktiv einsetzt beim Singen“ und Tanzen. Es sind das Lied und der Tanz, die „unmittelbar und nicht künstlich“ „wesensgetreu das Innen- und Außenleben des Volkes widerspiegeln".

Change: going back to the roots

Finding wisdom, grace and power in Armenian folk dances

Shakeh Major Tchilingirian

Balance. Zeitschrift des Fachverbandes Meditation des Tanzes – Sacred Dance e.V. NR 2 / 201, 2017.

[Deutsch]

“There is dance in all of life,” writes Komitas (1869-1935), the famed priest musicologist and founder of Armenian national school of music. Indeed, dance has always been part of humanity as significant ritual, ceremonial, communal and social meaning-transmitter and cultural expression. Komitas explains that “the spirit of national music is the aggregate of patterns that a nation instinctively employs in singing” and dancing. It is the song and dance that “are immediate, non-artificial,” which are “intrinsic reflections of the internal and external life of the folk.”

The entire Universe a dance?

Is not the Life of the entire Universe a dance?

Shakeh Major Tchilingirian

String of Pearls (40 Anniversary of Sacred Dance at Findhorn), July 2016

Komitas, the renowned Armenian musicologist and composer, asked this question a century ago. Indeed, he would have possibly never imagined that there would be a Universal Hall in Findhorn in Scotland, which is celebrating its 40^th Birthday this year, where people of all nationalities from all walks of life converge to share this Dance of Life.