Armenian Reporter - 2/16/2008 - arts and culture section

[Chakrian Hovsep]

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February 16, 2007 -- From the Arts & Culture section

To see the printed version of the newspaper, complete with photographs
and additional content, visit www.reporter.am and download the pdf
files. It's free.

1. Cher the Armenian (by Paul Chaderjian)
* Frank dialogue with one of the brightest stars in entertainment
* The secrets of her success, her visit to Armenia, her childhood, and
her new gig

1a. Cher's beauty secret
1b. In her own words:Cher's fears
1c. In her own words: American soldiers
1d. From the photo captions

2. In Draining the Sea, Aharonian Marcom tells humanity's
"unhistories" (reviewed by Shushan Avagyan)
* A difficult, astute, and important work

3. "The Great Uppression" of the '30s (by Aram Kouyoumdjian)

4. Garboosh's works on permanent display at Glendale's Armenian
Catholic Church (by Naris Khalatian)

5. The stars were out for the Armenian National Music Awards (by Betty
Panossian-Ter Sarkissian)

6. Live theater gets turned upside down in South Beach ((by Sean Krikorian)

************************************** *************************************

1. Cher the Armenian

* Frank dialogue with one of the brightest stars in entertainment

* The secrets of her success, her visit to Armenia, her childhood, and
her new gig

by Paul Chaderjian

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Seven nights before the giant presses in
Gardena, California, or Westwood, New Jersey, printed these black
letters on the paper that is in your hands now, the writer of this
article had writer's block.

After all, how does one come up with the perfect opening sentence of
an Armenian Reporter cover story about Cher, a modern-day legend?

She's a superstar with more than four decades of staying power. She
has sold more than 100 million albums and is an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,
and Golden Globe-winning performer. She has starred in movies and on
television and has directed; she has been known for her tastes in
fashion and men. Her life and her loves have been chronicled by media
around the world. And now, entering her sixth decade of life, she is
making a comeback with a 60-million-dollar paycheck.

Cher. One name. One word. Thousands of looks. Scantily-clad, Bob
Mackie-wearing sex symbol with billions of fans. Cher. One of a
handful of one-name stars that people know from Yerevan to Australia,
from Japan to South Africa. There is Madonna. Sting. Prince. But the
biggest name for the longest time is none other than Cherilyn
Sarkisian.

* Arranging for an interview

Having written and deleted at least a dozen opening sentences for this
article, I figured I'd start by saying I couldn't think of a more
proper way to introduce this story than by thanking Cher's manager,
Lindsay Scott for being gracious enough to allot 15 minutes during
Cher's back-to-back, one-day media day on Thursday, February 7.

Cher was giving interviews to the likes of ABC's Good Morning
America, The Associated Press, CNN, Entertainment Tonight, Reuters,
and us -- the Armenian Reporter and Armenia TV (Dish Network channel
905).

The big headline in the entertainment news world on the 7th was that
Cher was to headline the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The
world's number-one pop icon had signed a three-year deal to perform
200 shows in Vegas starting May 6. The news had surfaced on ABC early
in the morning, and Cher was doing interviews all day on Thursday.

"Paul, this is Lindsay Scott," had said the voice with a British
accent shortly after 5:30 P.M., on Thursday, January 31. I was in the
car heading to Hollywood to interview Melineh Kurdian, who was
performing at the Hotel Cafe down the street from the Kodak, where
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were debating in front of an audience
of eight million television viewers. The phone call I had been waiting
for since January 2 had finally come.

The month preceding the call had included a dozen calls from and to
one of Cher's assistants, Jennifer Ruiz. How we had found our way to
Jennifer's cell phone was thanks in part to Armenia TV's Armine
Amiryan, who had applied for a U.S. State Department program to report
about Armenian-Americans. Her stateside producer, a veteran diplomat,
broadcaster, and one-time Voice of America Russian-language anchor,
Bill McGuire, had used his vast resources to request an interview with
Cher.

My first call to Jennifer led to an e-mail explaining CS Media (with
which the Armenian Reporter and Armenia TV are affiliated.) Having
learned about our audience, intentions, interest, and the themes about
which we would want to interview Cher, Jennifer had put us on Cher's
schedule on Super Bowl Sunday.

Armine had long since returned to Yerevan, our camera operator Gev
Sarkisian (no relation to Cher) was off shooting a comedy feature
film, and the only Armenia TV personality stateside was Lusine
Shahbazyan-Sargsyan (no relation to Cher), the host of the documentary
series Discovery. She would have to be the face that presented Cher to
our audience, but we would need a real-time interpreter during the
two-camera interview that we would set up to shoot Lusine and Cher at
the same time.

"It's Super Bowl Sunday, and that's okay with Cher?" I had asked
Jennifer when she set up our first appointment.

"We work every day," was Jennifer's response. Cher was going to be
in hair and make-up on Super Sunday, ahead of Super Tuesday, to give
an exclusive interview to ABC's Good Morning America. The GMA crew
would leave up the lights, and we would slide in and do our interview.

Phone calls were made. Gev had to find a second camera operator.
Lusine was ready. We had formulated our questions. We had plenty of
blank tapes, backup batteries for the microphones, our own backup
lighting kit, a still photographer, and directions to the Four Seasons
Hotel on Wilshire.

When Cher's manager called on the 31st, he said the Sunday interview
was off, and could we do it the following Thursday, February 7? That
was perfectly fine, I said, and made phone calls to the dozen
colleagues who were ready for our meeting with Cher. Though many were
disappointed, some were excited that they would get to watch the big
game.

* Thursday, February 7

Four hours before our 15-minute appointment at 7:30 P.M. in the
Presidential Suite at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, our team from
various parts of Southern California had to start their trek to the
hotel.

Going anywhere in Southern California that's beyond ten miles from
your office or home requires at least four hours out of your schedule.
That may be overcautious, but you can't take chances and show up late
for an interview with Cher.

"The Four Seasons is on Third and Doheney," said camera operator
Armen Alexanyan when I arrived to pick up Gev and the rental gear from
Studio City. I had looked up the hotel on Google and had told everyone
it was at 9500 Wilshire.

Turns out the former Beverly Wilshire had now been acquired by Four
Seasons, but quick calls to both Four Seasons locations determined
there was no Lindsay Scott in the Presidential Suite on Wilshire. More
quick calls rerouted Lusine and the others to the Doheney property.
Armen had saved the day and lots of frustration.

Lusine and Arman, our still photographer, were to drive down from
the San Fernando Valley. Nyree Derderian, the Armenian Reporter's
Operations Manager, who would be the interpreter for Lusine, was at
the Reporter office in Atwater Village, south of Glendale. Gev was in
Studio City, and I would pick them both up and drive over the hill via
Laurel Canyon to the hotel.

With the evening commute traffic, Lusine and Arman had arrived at
6:30 P.M., and the rest of us didn't arrive until 6:45, a good 45
minutes before our interview. A bellhop helped us unload our gear and
a concierge escorted us to a holding room down the hall from the
Presidential Suite.

On the 16th floor, a publicist from Warner Brothers Records, Angela
Burke, greeted us and informed us that we wouldn't need our equipment
nor our camera operators, because Lindsay had set up a production team
with high-end equipment, lighting, and all the bells and whistles. We
would simply slip into the suite, sit down, and conduct the interview.
We would be handed tapes on our way out.

There was great disappointment on the faces of our camera folks. Gev
and I had kidded about Cher being his long-lost relative, and how they
were finally going to meet. Now we were being told that not only were
our cameras not needed, but our camera operators would not be allowed
into the Presidential Suite.

I should have anticipated this type of a set-up, because it's
standard fare in Hollywood press junkets. An interview with David
Letterman I produced in 1996 for my employer at the time, KJEO TV in
Fresno, should have reminded me that stars seldom take chances with
how their image will be reproduced. In Cher's case, it would make
complete sense for her to hire a production company that would
guarantee a high-quality image.

In the room were a Who's Who of international correspondents, all
waiting for their 15 minutes with fame. Perhaps Andy Warhol should
have said, "In the future everyone will be with the famous for fifteen
minutes."

The journalists who had been waiting for at least two hours included
a CNN entertainment producer; Michelle Emard from Reuters; Mike Cidoni
from The Associated Press; and Rick Campanelli, the Canadian host of
Entertainment Tonight. Rick looked familiar, because I used to watch
him on MuchMusic, MTV's Canadian rival, where Rick had been a veejay
for a decade.

Though everyone in the room was cool and there to do their job, to
earn a living, I know personally our team was giddy. This was, after
all, Cher that we were about to interview! Lusine had received calls
from Yerevan. I had called my sister Flora Istanboulian, who had
called our sister Maral Andekian.

Our excitement was contagious. Lusine's husband Bagrat Sargsyan had
called. Nyree's phone had been ringing, and everyone was curious about
the interview. I was even curious about the other journalists'
reaction and asked Rick, Mike, and Michelle to e-mail me their
reaction about their 15 minutes with Cher.

"In 2005, I covered the final performance of her farewell tour at
the Hollywood Bowl," wrote Michelle in her e-mail response to my
question. "I stood 15 feet away from her backstage as she prayed with
the crew for an incredible last show. I marveled at her youthful
energy and high spirits. I remember thinking, 'In every conceivable
way, Cher is inimitable.' Yet in spite of her stardom, and regardless
of her 'diva' status, I found Cher to be one of the most down-to-Earth
and humble people I have ever met."

"Cher has to be one of the most sincere, gracious and talented
people I've ever met," wrote Rick, also the day after our interviews
with Cher. He was in L.A. from Toronto to cover the Grammy Awards on
Sunday, February 10. "She's had success in this industry for over four
decades and continues to shine brighter with each passing day."

Rick's appointment was at 6:00 P.M., but he wasn't invited into the
Presidential Suite until 8:45 P.M. During the two-and-a-half-hour wait
for our turn, our camera operators had taken a few minutes to go
outside and smoke a cigarette and had run into Cher. Just when we all
thought they weren't going to see the superstar, Cher had taken a
break and come out of the Presidential Suite at the same moment as our
camera folks, and they had seen her after all.

Sometimes things just work out that way.

Upon their return to the holding room, they recounted the story of
running into Cher and her larger-than-life and very intimidating
bodyguard. The rumor among those waiting for interviews was that Cher
was going down to her own room one floor below and changing her outfit
every fifteen minutes.

* The Interview

With much kindness throughout the night, Cher's manager Lindsay, her
publicist Angela, her Colosseum show producer, AEG's publicity
representatives, and even members of Cher's television production crew
would come to the holding room and apologize for the delays, something
which was not even necessary or warranted. Most of us would have
waited all day to get our interview. After all, thousands had waited
in line for a chance to buy tickets for Cher's Farewell Tour just a
few years ago. Of course we would wait to talk to Cher; and when it
was time, we were ready.

After all the introductions, handshakes, and greetings, while we
were getting ready for the interview, I asked Cher if it was true that
she had gone to my alma mater, Fresno High School. "No," she said, "I
only went to grammar school in Fresno." That dialogue would be the
start of our 15-minute interview, which ended up being a 45-minute
dialogue.

What was running through my mind is how often I am surprised by how
different stars look in person. Most don't have the presence or
charisma you'd expect them to have; others don't even look like the
people we watch on the big screens at the movies or on the small
screens of television.

Madonna is said to be tinier that you would expect. When I met
Barbra Streisand in 1984, I was surprised by how fragile and waifish
she looked. Incidentally, only Cher and Streisand have had number-one
music hits and won an Oscar.

While Streisand looked fragile, weak, and less than charismatic in
real life, not Cher. Here was this woman, who commanded not just the
biggest concert venues in the world, but this very room.

Cher looked just like one would expect her to look. She looked not
just good, but great. She was beaming with an aura that made you feel
at home. She was kind, courteous, and so unbelievably personable.

I had seen her on concert in Fresno's Selland Arena in 2003 on her
Farewell Tour; but up close, she looked just as you would expect her
to look. Cameras and lighting weren't what made her endearing,
charismatic, attractive, sexy, interesting, and bigger than life; she
simply was all that in real life.

* Garabed Sarkisian

Cher's father Garabed Sarkisian was an immigrant whose parents had
survived the Genocide. He was a farmer, sometimes a truck driver, and
a man Cher calls "charismatic, a little shady like a bad boy."

"I liked him a lot," she says, "but he'd been in prison." Cher,
whose parents divorced when she was two, says she didn't know her
father until she was 11. She says she looks just like her father.

"When I was really little, I had this crush on an actor named Victor
Mature," says Cher. "I was really little, and he was really old. When
I was a teenager, I watched him on the first TV set that we had. And
my mom used to look at me, and I used to think, 'Oh, he's so
handsome.' Then I met my father and he looked exactly like Victor
Mature; and I realized that was the draw. "

Cher remembers meeting her father for the first time at age 11. Her
mother, Jackie Jean Crouch, was an aspiring actress and model from
Arkansas. She was part Cherokee Indian, part English, German, and
Irish. Jackie reunited with Garabed when Cher was 11 and then they
divorced again.

"I don't really look like anyone in my family, except my great
grandmother and my father," says Cher. "When I was young, every once
in a while, my mother would look at me with the strangest look on her
face; and then when I saw my father, I realized why. Because we made
the same faces, and I'd never seen him. And when I saw him, I realized
why."

After her parent's reunion, the family would often visit her
father's relatives in Fresno. "All of my relatives were living there,
in Fresno. A huge family, and my great grandmother never learned to
speak English. My grandmother spoke English, but she called women
'He.' She got [English] a little bit, but she didn't get it great. But
they were great. They were really happy to see me, and my grandmother
taught me how to make sarma, kufta, and all kinds of things. I really
enjoy and love the food. Armenian food is brilliant."

After her parents' second break-up, Cher would see her father only
occasionally until she left school to pursue acting in Hollywood at
age 16. Dyslexia had always been a challenge to overcome, so the
star-struck teenager enrolled in acting classes. At 17 she would meet
Sonny Bono, who would forever change her life.

"Then my father came out on the road," Cher continues. "When Sonny
and I became famous, my father came out on the road with us. And then
we kind of became estranged. And then he went up north of Santa
Barbara and was with this lady named Lee Romney; and till he died,
they bred fine Arabian horses."

After an on-again and off-again relationship with her father, Cher
would finally reconcile with Garabed Sarkisian on his death bed at
Fresno Community Hospital in 1985, when he died from cancer.

* Blockbuster career

Since there already are thousands of articles about Cher through
search engines, Lexus-Nexus, and at your local library, I'll spare you
the details of a brilliant career that Armenian Reporter readers have
already been an audience to. There were nine copies of Cher's
autobiography and a bunch of other biographies still in stock on
Amazon when I was writing this sentence, but I'll give you the
minute-long CliffsNotes.

Take a deep breath....

Starstruck teenager meets 28-year-old Sonny in 1963, gets thrown out
of her Hollywood apartment, moves in with Sonny, and shares his twin
bed. Mother Jackie threatens to have Sonny jailed, Cher returns home,
Sonny asks her to sing background vocals for Phil Spector, but she is
afraid to sing solos. Sonny and Cher record duets and call themselves
Caesar and Cleo, get married, and record "I Got You Babe" in 1965.
Record is an instant hit in the United Kingdom, knocking the Beatles
off the top of the charts. Song hits number one in the United States.
More songs, more hits. The couple makes two disastrous films, daughter
Chastity is born in 1969, and the IRS comes after them for a
quarter-million dollars in taxes. Stardom begins to fade, the couple
sing in small lounges to keep Chastity fed, Cher talks back at
hecklers, the back-and-forth shtick translates into a hit TV show in
1971, and more hits top the charts, including "Half Breed" and
"Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves." Sonny cheats, Cher files for divorce,
the couple's TV show comes to a crashing end. Cher tries a solo TV
show, marries Greg Allman, her show is axed, as is Sonny's solo TV
show. Cher gives birth to her son Elijah Blue in 1976 and divorces
Allman in 1977. She goes to New York to study acting and the Strasberg
Method, lands a role in Robert Altman's Come Back to the Five and
Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, wins Golden Globe and is nominated for
an Oscar for her role as Meryl Streep's roommate in Silkwood. [Insert
rumor here about Cher not liking her nose on the big screen and
starting her numerous rumored visits to cosmetic surgeons.]

Taking a second breath, and we continue with part two of our Cher's
life in two grafs....

Stars in Mask and wins more awards, releases self-titled album in
1986, and hits the top-ten charts with "I Found Someone" and "We All
Sleep Alone." Starts dating 22-year-old Rob Camilletti at age 40,
stars in Witches of Eastwick and Suspect, and wins Best Actress Oscar
for Moonstruck. Surprises the industry with top hits in 1988, selling
millions of albums featuring the songs "If I Could Turn Back Time" and
"Just Like Jesse James." Sonny joins her for a rare David Letterman
Show performance of "I Got You Babe," she stars in Mermaids, and makes
cameos in Altman's The Player in 1992 and Ready to Wear in 1994. Makes
a trip to Armenia with international media in tow, taking her
boyfriend Rob with her. She directs the daring If These Walls Could
Talk for HBO in 1996 and delivers Sonny Bono's eulogy in 1998.
Releases her biggest hit to date, "Believe," and hits number one
again, performs at the Super Bowl, wins the honor of being the most
successful single by a female performer to date, stars in Franco
Zeffirelli's Tea With Mussolini in 1999, releases another top-10 hit
album, Living Proof, in 2002, and goes on her Farewell Tour from 2002
to 2005, grossing an unprecedented $200 million.

Exhale.

Fourteen hours before our interview with Cher, she tells ABC's
Cynthia McFadden on Good Morning America that one of the reasons she
wants to work again is because it helps her battle depression.

"Work helps me a lot," Cher tells ABC News. "I enjoy the work, but
the work keeps you moving as well. It just keeps you moving. It keeps
you around people. You don't get a chance to go, 'Oh, what's life
about? You're just doing something. You're being productive."

* Armenia, Being Armenian

It's past nine on a Thursday night, and our interview will be last one
of the day for Cher. Her production team and publicists are tired,
Cher's been talking all day, but perhaps the toughest questions of the
day about identity, her Armenian experience, and her relationship with
her father are still ahead.

"Growing up, everyone in my family was light, blond, green eyes,
except me," she said. "So when I went to Armenia, and I turned around
and thought everybody looks like me here."

The 1993 journey to the newly independent republic was part charity
and part public relations. Armenia was landlocked, the Karabakh
Liberation War was underway, and Armenia couldn't get 12 seconds on
the evening news.

"Cher called Kirk Kerkoian out of the blue and said she wanted to go
to Armenia," says Harut Sassounian, vice chair of Kerkorian's Lincy
Foundation, president of the United Armenia Fund, and publisher of the
California Courier. "Kirk referred her call to me, and I made all the
arrangements for her trip and her schedule in Armenia."

Mr. Sassounian quickly arranged to take Cher and a group of
journalists from international media organizations. He says his
mission was "to maximize for Armenia the benefit of her trip." Mr.
Sassounian traveled to Armenia with Cher and was her guide and media
liaison for journalists, including a reporter from the popular People
magazine, which published an eight-page spread on Cher's trip.

"When we went there, it was really poor," Cher remembers. "People
were having a really hard time. And what we found that people were so
generous. They would take their month's rations and make us pies or a
cake and tea."

The superstar, who had and has all the luxuries and comforts the
world can provide, found herself on a DC-8 cargo ship, trying to land
in a city that was trying to survive with only a few hours of
electricity per day.

"We had to bring our own food," she says. "We came in one of those
big airplanes that has no seating, and we were bringing emergency
medical supplies. We were bringing baby food. We were bringing all
kinds of things in this huge transport, and I was positive we were
going to die, because it was such a rickety old plane; and they'd
bolted these little seats in the back for us and given us a canister
of oxygen. We had press with us as well, and we had to get into
Yerevan before the lights went out. Because there were no lights on
the runway, and we landed right when the sun went down and the lights
went out."

What Cher saw in her ancestral homeland was nothing less than
shocking. She says Yerevan was barren, trees had been cut down, roads
were impassible, and road crews were working without the proper
equipment. Men would try to fix equipment and machines without the
proper tools or parts, and women would try to roast food on drums and
barrels turned into makeshift barbeque pits.

"Everywhere I went, I saw poor people with great dignity," says
Cher. "I've never seen that in my life. I've never seen people dealing
with such poverty, but still looking great."

Cher remembers entering a random coffee shop, where the shopkeepers
had neither coffee to serve nor tea they could offer.

"All the men were in there," she says. "Some of the men were playing
chess, but they didn't have any coffee and they didn't have any tea.
But they were just in there. They were playing their chess. They were
talking. They were all dressed properly, maybe a little bit of tatters
but so dignified. And it was the first time I thought, I'm an
Armenian, I'm proud."

* Refugees from Azerbaijan

Cher recalls visiting a large room, where masses of Armenian refugees
from Azerbaijan were huddled together.

"It was like a big dormitory, a big building," she says, "but they
were partitioning themselves with blankets, and that's what they had.
They kept saying, 'Please go back to America and tell them what's
happening.' And I kept thinking, 'Oh my God. If I went to America,
nobody would care.' And that was a hard thing."

In America, after Cher's trip, the media did care -- if only for one
news cycle. ABC's 20/20 broadcast a report about Cher's visit and the
plight of her people. Newspapers and news services chronicled her
journey and shed light on the struggles of the landlocked republic
with economic and energy blockades and unrest on its border with
Azerbaijan.

"Her trip was reported in hundreds of newspapers and magazines
around the world," says Mr. Sassounian. "I wanted to publicize
worldwide Armenia's plight back then through the media and gain
international exposure and sympathy to Armenia's many, many needs,
both economic and political. I wanted to show Cher the hardships that
the Armenian people were living under."

One of the stops Cher made in Armenia was at an orphanage, where she
handed out Barbie dolls and recalled the six months she had been
placed in an orphanage by her mother when she was two. People magazine
reported that Cher hugged each of the kids and said when she was
growing up she hated Barbie and considered the doll a blond bimbo, but
realized at the orphanage that the doll was useful, because it brought
smiles to kids who had never had a new toy.

"The kids were so adorable," says Cher, sitting on the 16th floor of
the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. "They'd been through so much.
But they were like any other children. I know that there was a lot of
emotional distress, and they'd been through a lot; but we were there.
We were just playing, having cake and whatever they liked. It was a
big party, and they had a good time."

Among Cher's stops on what People magazine called "an emotionally
charged" trip was a stop at Yerevan State University, where she told
the students she didn't know why she had come to Armenia. People
magazine reporter Susan Cheever wrote that in front of the crowd, Cher
grasped her mission and was a sparkle of hope for the students and the
nation.

"Most Americans have no idea you are here," Cheever reports Cher
telling the university students. "The most important thing I can do is
take a picture back to America so they can see what it's like."

* The letter from Yerevan

The May 17, 1993, article in People magazine -- which has featured
Cher on its cover more than a dozen times over the past four decades
-- also reported how Cher's trip to Armenia had come about.

Cheever wrote that the family of a partially paralyzed
three-year-old wrote the superstar asking for her help. People
reported Cher said it was a miracle that the letter had reached her,
so she made arrangements to visit the family and figure out how to get
the three-year-old to the United States for proper treatment.

"She was deeply touched by the trip," says Mr. Sassounian. "It
brought her closer to her Armenian heritage and roots. She had a lot
of personal stories about her trip to Armenia. When she wrote her
autobiography, she included a whole chapter in the book about her
visit to Armenia."

Cher finishes up her stories of Armenia during our interview by
summarizing what she took away from the trip. She makes her point by
remembering a couple of mathematicians and road crews she talked with
in Yerevan.

"The mathematicians were living in this horrible kind of place that
looked like a prison, but it was an apartment building," she
remembers. "They were just so sweet, and they took all of their money
and made us this fabulous meal. When we were there, we'd see people
with no equipment trying to fix the roads, people with nothing trying
to fix everything, trying to do what they could. But they had a great
spirit. That's what I took away from it. That's what I take away from
Armenia."

We ask her if she has ever thought about returning to Yerevan, and
she lights up and asks whether there are safe airliners that fly to
Armenia. She then changes from the interviewee to the interviewer and
asks whether Yerevan has changed from what she saw. Lusine invites her
to Yerevan and promises to be her host if Cher decides to come.

"I would love to see it," she says, "because I saw people without
anything still being great. Without any luxuries, without even the
basic necessities, they still had this strength and charm. Very
cosmopolitan. French. With nothing, but still great. Ladies with
handbags walking down the street. So yeah, I would really like to see
what has happened to it. Because when I saw it, it was in deep
distress. It was in deep distress."

* The other reporters

Back when we were waiting, Armenia TV's Lusine Shahbazyan looked out
west toward the ocean and at the nighttime lights of Beverly Hills,
the high-rises of Century City and beyond. Photographer Arman took
pictures from holding room balcony. The CNN producer put her shoes
back on when it was her turn, and Angela brought in a tray with ice
water and tall, clear cups.

Angela's from New York, Rick is from Toronto, Lusine is from
Yerevan, and Nyree is from Pasadena. But all had at least one thing in
common -- their desire to interview Cher.

"It struck me as I was walking down the hall of the plush Four
Seasons towards the hotel suite where I was to meet Cher, that she was
soon going to be the biggest star -- to this date and arguably for the
rest of my career -- that I would ever have the opportunity to
interview," said broadcast journalist Michelle Emard, who was at the
hotel representing Reuters.

"I reminisced about watching The Sonny and Cher Show with my parents
when I was very young," writes Michelle in response to my inquiry.
"Her ascorbic wit made me laugh, and I admired her exotic look and
unique style. I loved Cher in Moonstruck (she is a phenomenal actress)
and Mermaids. Nobody else could have played those parts to such
perfection."

Michelle, a seasoned journalist who has traveled to more than two
dozen countries, says she cried when she saw Cher reunite with Sonny
on the David Letterman show to sing "I Got You Babe." She says Cher's
eulogy for Sonny a decade later also made her cry.

Most celebrities seem to have more ego than talent and behave
accordingly, says Michelle. "Again, Cher distinguishes herself in this
regard. She is straightforward, yet unassuming. And, underneath it
all, she is the same little girl who was too shy to dial the
'operator' to get a telephone number for her mother."

* Perseverance and star power

Cher's incredible and unique voice is at the core of her success. Her
ability to belt out songs with strength and drama, and her keen sense
of what to sing and when have been the ingredients to her formula of
success; but what advice does she have for others?

"You pick a direction and never give up," says Cher. "Any direction
that you pick, anywhere you go, there are certain difficulties. The
direction that I chose has a certain amount of difficulties too. You
just face different problems, and you keep going. I think it's the
same with anything -- just never give up."

And she never has.

During the years when she was a single mother, barely getting by;
during the years she and Sonny owed the IRS; when she worked as a
lounge singer and was being heckled; and when she hosted infomercials
to make a living, Cher never gave up.

"When you're doing well, everything seems easy, and this is
fabulous," she says. "Then around the corner, there's something that
can be really challenging. That's the difference between people who
attain their goals and people who don't. No matter what happens, you
just don't give up on what you want. I don't mean that in a material
or any thing, I mean it more in a substantive sense that you don't
give up your dreams at any cost. You just go for it."

* You can enjoy Cher again

Starting May 6, Cher will shine once again at Caesars Palace for
90-minute concerts, four times a week. Tickets are on sale through
Ticketmaster and sell from $90, $140, $175, and $250. The performances
on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays will run through
August 31.

"The Colosseum is a beautiful concert hall, where Celine Dion has
been playing," says Cher toward the end of our interview. "I'm going
to open there and play there twice a year, in the spring and the fall.
That's my new project."

The 4,300-seat Colosseum is being fitted with state-of-the-art
lighting, and show producers promise an impressive spectacle. Bob
Mackie is creating the costumes and state-of-the-art lighting and
special effects will complement Cher's chart-topping hits.

"I started in Vegas at Caesars," says Cher, "so I've come full
circle. I'm back and I plan to give my fans the best experience yet. I
think everybody knows I only do things in a big way."

We certainly do.

connect:
cher.aeglive.com
cher.com
866-510-CH ER

* * *

* Cher's beauty secret

Cher credits her good looks to the genes she inherited from her father
and mother. "On the Armenian side of my family, my great grandmother
lived over a hundred. On my American side, we're celebrating my
grandmother's 95 birthday. And up until about seven years ago, my
grandmother went to the gym three days a week. My mother is 80, and
she looks 50. So, I think from both side of my family, I've got great
genes. The Armenians in my family are beautiful on my father's side,
and my mother's side, the women are very beautiful, strong and tough."

* * *

* In her own words:Cher's fears

Music and art reflect the people of the time. Let's take my mother's
generation during World War II. It was hard, and people were called
upon to sacrifice their lives, sacrifice their homes. There were great
sacrifices made, because we were in the war, and everybody sacrificed.
People had more ethics. People were more caring. People didn't know
about their next iPhone or iPod or Xbox. Today, we're creating a very
weak bunch of kids. And I don't think it's going to serve us well,
because they don't have the character. Because character is usually
made by hard work or sacrifice or all the things you need to build
character. So at the same time that we've got all these kids playing
with Xboxes, we've got our soldiers overseas having to face things
that are horrible that we don't even think about. We can't even
imagine the pain that they're seeing. So it's a very segmented
relationship that's going on in this country. It's very hard to figure
out which way this country is going to go - if we're going to get back
any of our standards or if we're going to go off and melt into
oblivion.

* * *

* In her own words: American soldiers

I've visited the soldiers serving in this war many, many times. I've
gone to Walter Reed. I've gone to Bethesda several times. I went to
Germany to be with the men and the women who were injured. I also
spent a lot of time with the doctors. USO asked me if I would ask time
with the doctors and the nurses, especially. So, these men and women,
the boys and the young women, I just saw unbelievable conviction and
unbelievable depth and unbelievable suffering -- more suffering that I
can even remember from Vietnam. I also saw unbelievable suffering from
the doctors and the nurses. And we're having such a hard time, and
that's why they asked me to spend my extra days with the doctors and
the nurses, because they never see anybody get well. They get these
broken guys, and they get them well enough to travel, and the soldiers
go on to other hospitals, but the doctors never see the soldiers get
well. They just seem them broken, and they send them on, so they get
very depressed.

* * *

* From the photo captions

The ever-changing stylish look that has launched posters, television
shows, 100 million albums and concerts around the world. Cher told the
Reporter she still has her original Armenian black hair under the
various wigs she wears.Photo: Michael Lavine.

*

Cher arriving in Armenia in April 1993 on a United Armenia Fund cargo
ship with $3 million in humanitarian gifts courtesy of Kirk Kerkorian
and the UAF.Photo: United Armenia Fund.

*

Billboard Magazine reports that Cher's three-year Living Proof
Farewell Tour, which concluded in 2005, played 273 shows in North
America, grossing $192.5 million.

*

"Believe" released and recorded in 1998, peaked at number one in 23
countries worldwide. On the week ending March 13, 1999, it reached
number one in the Billboard Hot 100, making Cher the oldest female
artist (at the age of 52) to perform this feat. It also was ranked as
the number-one song of 1999 by Billboard, and became the biggest
single in her entire career.

*

Cher visiting an Armenian home to see how citizens were coping during
the republic's infancy. Photo: UAF.

*

Cher lighting a candle at Etchmiadzin.

*

Cher outside the Hotel Armenia (now Armenia Marriott Hotel). Cher
reports that candles were so scarce then that the floor ladies would
not give her more than two candles a day, which she used to put on
her make-up. The guests were only allowed one blanket each, and Cher
says she was forced to huddle with her bodyguard-turned-boyfriend Rob
Camilletti and best friend Paulette Betts to keep warm at nights at
the Hotel. Photos: Photolure.

*

Whether her hair is blue, black, blond, or platinum, her penetration
and soulful Armenian eyes were what set her apart as an individual
while growing up. While organizing her trip to Armenia, Cher demanded
that she be flown to Ankara, so that she would demand that the
blockade be lifted.

*

Cher gave each orphan a hug and a Barbie doll, saying that she hated
the blond doll when she was a youngster. Photo: United Armenia Fund.

*

Cher is part diva, part gay icon, part superstar, part rebel, and the
only star that has changed her looks as frequently as the Reporter
changes Arts and Culture covers. Photo: Michael Lavine.

***************************************** **********************************

2. In Draining the Sea, Aharonian Marcom tells humanity's "unhistories"

* A difficult, astute, and important work

reviewed by Shushan Avagyan

Micheline Aharonian Marcom is one of the most compelling authors of
Armenian descent currently writing and she has, in less than a decade,
achieved what other Armenian novelists were unable to in the past
century. Aside from the fact that she has won several esteemed
literary awards, Marcom has created a body of fiction that
personalizes the Armenian trauma and its characters as never before,
capturing both the uniqueness of the Genocide and its aftereffects,
and, at the same time, the universality of human experience.

Marcom's first novel, Three Apples Fell From Heaven, was named a
Best Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times and The Washington
Post, and won Columbia University's Anahid Literary Award. Her second
novel, The Daydreaming Boy, won a 2005 PEN USA Literary Award for
fiction and got Marcom the prestigious Lannan Literary Fellowship in
2004 and the Whiting Writers' Award in 2006. Now Marcom concludes her
remarkable triptych with her most brilliant, complex, and daring work
yet.

In Draining the Sea, Marcom constructs a bizarre relationship
between an American man, the progeny of Genocide survivors, and Marta,
a young Guatemalan woman whose terrible fate is somehow connected to
the narrator's nightmarish existence. Racked by memories and visions
of the Guatemalan civil war, the violent death of Mayan people, and in
particular of Marta, the unnamed man spends his nights driving the
streets of Los Angeles and "essays himself from ether." The narrator,
who seems to be involved in her treacherous death, is at the same time
claiming to be her faithful lover. In an unconscious attempt to redeem
himself, he methodically collects animal carcasses from the roadside
and buries them in his garden.

With Draining the Sea, Marcom continues her quest to trace the
effects of genocide over the course of three generations and nearly a
century, but unlike her previous two novels, this book is set in the
Americas and follows one of the darkest episodes of modern history. In
her distinctive voice that brilliantly represents the bleak and
hallucinatory world of her characters, the story unfolds through the
"unhistories" of humanity, reaching us as though from an underworld of
torture. The memories that are slowly deteriorating the narrator's
sanity and driving him to madness include uninvited images of
lynchings of Ixil peasants, rape camps in Guatemala City, and a
"bone-boy"-the bone collector in Der Zor.

Marcom's language stylistically reenacts trauma through
nonlinearity, disassociation, compulsive repetition, and negation:
"This is an essay against Progress (it is not a progressive story),
this essay does not do it, but like the maze of days of thoughts of
memories and notmemories, like the phrases which tumbled willy-nilly
from a mother's mouth, or an invocation, a song; -- repeat themselves
endlessly, without form or with it?" The narrator's language is
deliberately broken down, it often doesn't make any sense. Words that
become inadequate are reformulated in new forms to express the
inexpressible: "We say (he must have done something to deserve his
fate): it's sordid to name such things, dirty and indecorous: don't
put these sentences on the page: the dead do not approve of such
things; the dead hurtle in, gather round, ... and essay him back into
the man he might have been."

To answer an old question posed by Hovig Tchalian in his analysis of
Marcom's fiction: "Why? Why write a novel that reads like the diary of
a madman?" and in response to Ara Oshagan's quasi-defensive remark
that "for some books, the writing is done for the writing, not for the
reading," I will simply quote another poignant line from Draining the
Sea:

"This unreadable and unread book (will you read it, Reader? Do you?)"

It is easy to dismiss a book for its difficulty, but Marcom's work
is too astute and too important -- both artistically and historically
-- to be so easily written off. Draining the Sea, with its unflinching
gaze into the infinitely deep and contradictory realities of human
experience, is a masterpiece that puts Micheline Aharonian Marcom next
to such great American novelists as William Faulkner and Toni
Morrison.

* * *

Micheline Aharonian Marcom. Draining the Sea. Riverhead Books, March
2008. 339 pp.

* * *

Tour cities and dates
Seattle - Friday, March 14 - Elliott Bay Bookstore 7:30 P.M.
Los Angeles - Tuesday, March 18 - Dutton's/Brentwood 7:00 P.M.
San Diego - Wednesday, March 19 - Warwick's 7:30 P.M.
San Francisco - Monday, March 24 - Cody's 7:00 P.M.

* * *

Shushan Avagyan is a doctoral student in English and comparative
literature at Illinois State University. She has translated a volume
of poetry by Shushanik Kurghinian and a book on plot by Viktor
Shklovsky.

******************************* ********************************************

3. "The Great Uppression" of the '30s

* Second in a Monthly Series

by Aram Kouyoumdjian

Last month, when I began this year-long series of articles on William
Saroyan's theatrical legacy to mark the centennial of his birthday, I
opted for one of his later plays, Armenians, as my starting point. My
choice was a symbolic one, given that Armenians is a little known
piece with virtually no production history. It is not among the body
of work that established Saroyan's reputation as a playwright in the
late 1930s and early 1940s.

The prolific Saroyan is believed to have written over 200 plays in
his lifetime, although many of them remain unpublished. Still, he
attained his earliest success not for his plays, but for his short
stories -- especially, "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze,"
which appeared in 1934 and made Saroyan an immediate sensation.

As Saroyan has told it, "the first work for the theatre" that he
wrote "after becoming a published writer" was Subway Circus. In a
preface to that work, Saroyan amusingly recalls the circumstances in
which Subway Circus was written:

I was in New York in May, 1935. One day The New York Times said I
had written a play or was going to write one. I had bought a ticket
for Europe. The boat was sailing in five days. I had not written a
play. But it seemed to me that there was enough time before the
sailing of the boat to write one. Nobody wants to make a liar of The
New York Times. Before the boat sailed, Subway Circus was written.
Once again The New York Times had printed news fit to print. I called
Subway Circus a play. It is probably no such thing. It is very
likely a theatrical entertainment of some sort.

Theatrical success for Saroyan came in 1939, when two of his best
known plays, The Time of Your Life and My Heart's in the Highlands,
played on Broadway. The Time of Your Life, which featured Gene Kelly
and Celeste Holm in its original cast, played 185 performances and
went on to win the Pulitzer Prize (which Saroyan declined) and the New
York Drama Critics Circle Award -- the first play to be so doubly
honored (the Tony Awards being several years away from their debut).

The Time of Your Life is set in Nick's Saloon and unfolds over the
course of a single day. The loosely-plotted play follows the
eccentric denizens of the bar, chief among them the mysteriously
wealthy Joe, whose sole occupation seems to be sipping champagne
through a bottomless glass. Whimsical characters like a pinball
addict, a philosophizing immigrant, and historical legend Kit Carson
enliven the honky-tonk, which is mostly frequented by sailors,
longshoremen, and prostitutes eking out a living.

The struggles of a poverty-stricken family are traced in My Heart's
in the Highlands. This family of Armenian ancestry consists of a
poet, his young son, and his elderly mother living in Fresno at a time
when "[t]here are no jobs" and "[t]he people have no money." But
while there may not always be food to eat, the family often finds
solace in poetry and music.

The money woes that plague the characters in Saroyan's plays are
informed by the Great Depression that had been devastating lives for a
decade by the time The Time of Your Life and My Heart's in the
Highlands reached the stage. Several playwrights -- most famously,
Clifford Odets -- had already taken up the cause of the working class
as part of a proletarian movement in literature. While Saroyan is not
usually classified among these proletarian writers, many of whom were
sympathetic to Communism, his writing indubitably explores the
elements of proletarian drama, as it features working class characters
and themes. Nevertheless, his plays remain tinged with innocence and
optimism, which serve as two manifestations of a writing style
described as Saroyanesque.

"This mystical variety of optimism reflected Saroyan's own feelings
about the depression," Mark Fearnow has written in The American Stage
and the Great Depression. "He liked to call this period the 'Great
Uppression' because he felt it was a time when things kept getting
better and better ... This attitude toward the history of the period --
reflective of an irritating and characteristic solipsism on Saroyan's
part ... was based on his feelings about his own career, which
flourished during the thirties."

Writers and critics in the first half of the 20th century were split
about Saroyan's talents, and several faulted the lack of discipline
and focus in his work. Few were as bilious as James Thurber, who
shunned the "sloppiness of proletarian writing" generally and was
specifically "appalled" by Saroyan's work, wondering if "writing that
deals with poor people out of work ... is now bound to sell, no matter
how bad it is." Within the proletarian movement itself, critic Philip
Rahv dismissed Saroyan's "formula of innocence" as "the formula of
'Ah, the wonder, the beauty of it all!' made famous in Saroyan's
plays" and ascribed the plays' popularity to their "fairy-tale
aspect." Conversely, Mary McCarthy declared that "Saroyan is genuine
... If you compare him with his contemporaries, Odets and [John]
Steinbeck, the purity of his work is blinding." Edmond Gagey asserted
that his plays "show more originality than those of [Eugene] O'Neill,
[Paul] Green, and [Maxwell] Anderson put together."

While critics like Fearnow may take exception to what they describe
as "fatuous sentimentality" in Saroyan's plays, other learned
commentators appreciate the undertones to such sentimentality. Jordan
Miller and Winifred Frazer note, for example, that "beneath the
surface" of Saroyan's writing "lie the joys and sorrows of the real
world." And even when the playwright's characters tend "toward the
simplistic and the sentimental," James H. Justus opines, "his picture
of the world they must live in is complex, involving the forces which
at once assault them maliciously and test them providentially."

That is perhaps why Justus can claim that "Saroyan had a distinctive
voice which spoke of and for the '30s."

* * *

Aram Kouyoumdjian is the winner of Elly Awards for both playwriting
(The Farewells) and directing (Three Hotels). His latest work is
Velvet Revolution.

************************************* **************************************

4. Garboosh's works on permanent display at Glendale's Armenian Catholic Church

by Naris Khalatian

When Gaspar "Garboosh" Gharibian carved his wooden Pietà in 1971 in
Soviet Armenia, for his graduate exhibit, little did he know that his
later artistic life in America would be defined by religious art.

Gharibian was born in Nakhichevan, a region in historic Armenia,
near the border of Iran, known for its ancient khachkars (cross
stones). His grandfather was a pottery craftsman. When he was only
four years old, Gaspar would take his grandfather's leftover clay and
mold it into miniature heads and bodies. In 1958, when he was only
eight, his family moved to Yerevan, Armenia, where he began to nurture
his talent for drawing and sculpting. At the age of 14, he was
accepted to the School of Fine Arts. From 1971 through 1977, he
attended the prestigious Institute of Fine and Performing Arts, in
Yerevan, with an emphasis on sculpture. After graduating, he joined
the institute's faculty and began teaching sculpture and composition,
while creating his own secular and religious works of art in his
studio. In 1996, he won a US immigration lottery and reluctantly left
Armenia with his wife and children to join his wife's family in
America.

Unassuming and gracious, Gharibian is a man of few words. He is tall
and slender, with piercing black eyes. His hands and fingers are
chiseled, and the gray settled in his hair is not from the dust of his
carved stones. I met him at Saint Gregory the Illuminator Armenian
Catholic Church, on Mountain Street in Glendale, California, where he
was putting the last-minute touches on his finest creations of
religious art adorning this church. While sitting on a plastic crate
box, with a chisel and hammer in hand, he had crouched over his work
and was meticulously engraving the stone inscriptions.

In 2000, the parish commissioned Gharibian to carve a series of
stone panels. The church architect, Aram Alajajian, had envisioned a
church not with oil or color paintings but primarily works of art in
stone. So began the seven-year journey of drafting, drawing,
redrawing, perfecting, and ultimately producing timeless works of art.

That journey culminated in a special ceremony on December 16, 2007,
when Bishop Manuel Batakian, Eparch of Armenian Catholics in the
United States and Canada, along with Bishop Gerald Wilkerson of the
Los Angeles Archdiocese, blessed the panels with the Holy Meron
(chrism), in the presence of a large congregation, gathered to
celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Armenian Catholic Eparchy.

* An exuberant style

Gharibian's 14 bas-relief panels are made of stones imported from
Syria and display the 14 Stations of the Cross -- scenes depicting
Christ's tortuous road to the cross, from being condemned to death to
being laid in the tomb. Underneath these Stations are 12 large and two
smaller bas-relief stone panels, representing Armenian saints
(including recently beatified Archbishop Ignatius Maloyan), martyrs,
and four Evangelists. Combined with the inscription stone, each panel
combination stands at an imposing height of nine feet. The panels are
encased in metal frames and permanently affixed to the church walls.

Saint Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Catholic Church is believed
to be the only Armenian church that displays the Stations of the
Cross, a Roman Catholic tradition dating back to the 5th century,
alongside Armenian saints and martyrs, as an artistic expression of
one aspect of its Armenian Catholic identity.

The panels are placed in a chronological and meaningful order, with
Saint Gregory being prominently placed below the main altar, beneath
the first Station of the Cross. Chronological order was respected as
long as it corresponded to the architectural plan. In the Saints'
Galleries, three dates were given special importance: 301, 451, and
1915, which reflect significant moments in Armenia's history and
Christian identity. The year 301 represents Armenia's adoption of
Christianity as its national and state religion. The year 451 marks
the time when Armenians fought against the Persian forces to preserve
their Christian faith and Armenian identity. The year 1915 is
associated with the first genocide of the 20th century, perpetrated by
the Turkish Ottoman Empire. One of the victims of the carnage was
Archbishop Maloyan, whose martyrdom was publicly recognized worldwide
and proclaimed by Pope John Paul II in 2001.

Gharibian's saints are not replicas of other drawings. They are new
creations, reflecting each saint's religious and historical identity
in a contemporary, modern, and unique setting. Christian and Armenian
symbols, intricately carved throughout the panels, further add to the
richness of the artwork.

"As in poetry and literature, sculpting has its own language,"
Gharibian says. "As an Armenian sculptor, I wanted my art to 'speak'
my language, and to convey what is so near and dear to my heart."
Inspired by the miniature paintings of illuminated manuscripts, he
portrayed his saints and angels in the Armenian style. Their dramatic
gaze, facial features, poses, and posture all project a quality which
is unmistakably Armenian. What makes Gharibian's work so modern is his
unconventional approach to representing the conventional. His crosses
are not always perpendicular to the plane, at times appearing
diagonally, and at times emerging and breaking out of the inner frame,
defying the confines of its panel, symbolizing the dynamic nature of
the cross over the centuries.

As for which of the panels were the hardest to carve, Gharibian
smiles and says, "All of them." In his saints, he wants the public to
see contemporaries, the faces of ordinary people living in the 21st
century. To complete the beauty of these panels, ceiling lights were
mounted to illuminate and give them special warmth and enlightenment.

When asked whether he wanted his own children to follow his artistic
footsteps, Gharibian smiles again and says, "No." His daughter is
already a chiropractor, and his son is working on his doctorate in
nuclear chemistry. "An artist's life is difficult, both financially
and emotionally," he adds. As an artist, he suffered and struggled to
reach that elusive sense of perfection. He has boxes and boxes of his
drawings and re-drawings of the panels, nearly 500 sketches, showing
the conceptual transformations. Turning a figment of his imagination
into a living fragment of stone was an arduous process, befitting of
the serious topic of his Stations. With the completion of each panel
came a moment of catharsis.

In his next project, Gharibian will carve a new khachkar for another
church. Indeed, this son of Nakhichevan has been busy carving
khachkars for a number of Armenian churches and parishes in America,
all while Azeris were destroying Armenian khachkars in his birthplace.

With carvings on the exterior walls of the church, Saint Gregory the
Illuminator Armenian Catholic Church now houses the largest number of
Gharibian's creations. His artwork will be preserved in the most
unique of all "galleries," in churches. There, art will not only be
viewed but venerated for centuries to come, beckoning the faithful to
meditate and ultimately transcend the physical sculpture and enter
into a relationship of prayer and adoration with the One who is the
Creator of the same physical reality.

The church is located at 1510 E. Mountain Street, Glendale, California, 91207.

Visiting Hours:
Monday through Saturday:
8 A.M. to 6 p.M.
Sunday: 8 A.M. to 6 P.M.
(818) 243-8400

* * *

Naris Khalatian holds an undergraduate degree in French language and
literature from Occidental College and a law degree from Southwestern
University School of Law. An attorney, she serves as chairperson of
the Parish Council of Saint Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Catholic
Parish in Glendale, California.

************************************* **************************************

5. The stars were out for the Armenian National Music Awards

by Betty Panossian-Ter Sarkissian

YEREVAN -- The best of Armenia's music industry were honored at the
5th Armenian National Music Awards which took place on February 10 at
the Alexander Spendiaryan National Academic Theater of Opera and
Ballet in Yerevan.

The four-hour-long event was similar to all cultural celebrations
organized in Yerevan, which heavily rely on performances by pop stars.
The ceremony was hosted by a cluster of stars, also featuring
star-couples of the Armenian pop music industry. Often they took
advantage of the opportunity to show off their humor and a good
portion of tolerance toward each other's jokes.

The awards ceremony was hardly full of any surprises. Arame was
declared the best male singer of 2007 and Sirusho, the best female
singer. Sofi Mkheyan, who in the past year reshaped herself as a new
dynamic voice of Armenian pop, accepted an award for "Best Hit of the
Year" for her song, The Day and the Present. The ethno-pop DJ band
Armenoid received the award for "Best Pop Band."

On a much brighter side, Armenian authentic folk and classical music
were awarded an honorable place in this year's awards ceremony. The
Jury, comprised of seven groups (musicians, cultural figures,
representatives of various Armenian television and radio companies,
representatives of print media, prominent figures of the Armenian pop
industry, and representatives of various professions) did attach major
importance to the folk musicians. Thus, the award for best male folk
singer was handed to Arsen Grigorian, and the best female folk singer
to Anna Mayilyan whose album. Ethnovocal was honored as the best folk
album of the year.

Vardan Badalyan, one of the new entrants in Armenian pop music took
home the award for the "Discovery of the Year." National Youth
Orchestra of Armenia was also honored with the award of "Discovery of
the Year" for classical music.

Hayko, considered to be one of the most successfully established
names of Armenian pop music was also honored. He received two awards,
one for the "Best Album of the Year" for his There are no Words and
another, the "Tigran Naghdalyan Award" for his soundtrack of the film
Don't be Afraid.

State funded projects and initiatives were also honored with special
awards, including the one given to Sharm Holding, a media company, for
several music projects and video clips praising the National Army of
Armenia.

Director Hrach Keshishyan received the award for the video clip of
If You Go by Emmy and Super Sako; Akunk Folk Ensemble for the "Best
Folk Ensemble;" Shant Television Channel for the best television
program Folk Singer; the concert dedicated to the 10th anniversary of
Armenia's national Jazz band as the "Best Jazz Initiative" of the
year, and for the National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia for its
concert in Karabakh for the best initiative in classical music.

****************************************** *********************************

6. Live theater gets turned upside down in South Beach

by Sean Krikorian

MIAMI BEACH -- In an increasingly tame society concerned with giving
offense, a group of performers and entertainers have come together to
turn the world on its head. Their shows, Absinthe and Gazillionaire's
Late Night Lounge, at the renowned Spiegelworld Tent in Miami Beach,
shock and entertain audiences with high-flying trapeze artists,
contortionists, awkward stripteases, and beautiful displays of
strength, art, and humor.

At the heart of all this madness are two delightfully offensive
characters called The Gazillionaire and Penny, played by Voki Kalfayan
and Anais Thomassian, respectively. The performers co-host Absinthe
and play in Gazillionaire's Late Night Lounge, along with the band
Fish Circus, in a highly improvised show. "I want to see what it's
like to start something and just keep pushing it to the maximum
potential," Kalfayan says, referring to his improvisations.

* The performers

Kalfayan is a New York native who grew up in Stanfordville, in the
"middle of the woods," where his imagination could run wild. "I was a
loner and lived a lot in my imagination," he recalls. However, he did
have opportunities to show his creative side at a young age. "I went
to Camp Nubar in New York from age 7 to 13," he says. "We performed
sketches and did skits around campfires. At 9 I was writing surrealist
comedies with bizarre endings and lip-syncing to Pink Floyd -- an
event that almost got me kicked out of camp. I didn't rediscover
performing till late in high school, when I auditioned for a play. I
got heavily into acting and the theater, but it wasn't till I became a
clown that I connected with my bizarre past as a creative camp kid. I
brought that sense of humor to my performance and till today I rely
heavily on that off-beat sense of humor." Kalfayan's Gazillionaire is
unapologetic, aggressive, and never misses a beat when audience
members heckle him. Whenever challenged, he rises to the occasion and
usually leaves audience members questioning their own thoughts.

Kalfayan has been a clown for the past 13 years and an actor for the
past 17, with a resume that includes appearances with a number of
prestigious companies. "I performed in the Ringling Brothers Circus in
1996," he says. "That was my first performing contract. I dropped out
of a very nice college to do that. It was the best decision I have
ever made. I performed with John Malkovich's Steppenwolf Theatre
Company in Chicago. I performed in Japan with the Wallenda Family
Circus, where I learned to walk high wire. I toured the US with the
Cheval Theatre, an all-horse circus created by one of Cirque du
Soleil's lead artistic creators. Then I went on to work on three
different Cirque du Soleil shows. Nothing compares to creating the
characters for Gazillionaire, creating our own show and seeing that
turn into something else."

Born in Tehran, Thomassian moved to Los Angeles with her family when
she was 3. "I loved musical theater just as much as I loved cartoons,"
she recalls. Thomassian has been performing since the age of 5. She
received her formal education at the Southern California Conservatory
of Music and the Pacoima Performing Arts Magnet School. She also
attended Glendale Community College, where she appeared in a slew of
plays, such as West Side Story and Rhinoceros. "I did a number of
plays at local theaters, including Peter Pan, Scapin, and Let the
Rocks Speak, which was written by my mother, Lilly Thomassian," she
says. "I did a lot of writing in between: lots of poems and monologues
and self-discovery."

Thomassian's meeting with Shahen Hagobian was a turning point.
Together they started the band Fish Circus. "A whole new world opened
up," she says. "We had performances [at events and venues] ranging
from elementary school pancake breakfasts to the El Rey Theatre in Los
Angeles. After that I met Voki and an equally strange world opened up:
the world of the Gazillionaire."

Like the proverbial yin and the yang, Kalfayan and Thomassian bounce
off one another with extraordinary timing and wit. "From the moment I
met Voki, I knew we would do something awesome together," Thomassian
says. "He had the Gazillionaire [character] already and he helped me
find my Penny character with just three ten-minute rehearsals. But we
needed some music and I knew Shahen would be down to try something
new."

* The big show

The Gazillionaire is quite a sight for anyone who hasn't had an
up-close encounter with the character. "The Gazillionaire is an
evolution of all the different styles of theater and performance that
I have studied and performed over the years," Kalfayan explains. "It
really combines clown, bouffon (a very dark and aggressive clown
style), commedia dell'arte, mime, and a slew of other styles. The
character is constantly changing and growing and learning from people
I work with."

Commenting on audience response, Kalfayan says, "Audiences always
have drastically different reactions: from leaving during the show to
coming to see it over and over, to being indifferent, to being
offended, to being offended and loving to be offended. I think that
good theater should do that. If everyone loves it, you are Disney; if
everyone hates it, you're like Larry the cable guy... I like to make
the audience feel something, shake it a little bit."

The Gazillionaire show relies a great deal on the band and music
that back up the show. The band is already playing when the audience
enters the venue. It seamlessly transitions into the show and
continues to provide music for both planned material and spontaneous
moments with the audience. "The original Gazillionaire Band was Mher
Ajamian [formerly of Tallulah Sound Experiment], Shahen Hagobian, and
Anais. It was a tiny ragtag band that pulled the whole show together,
and the best part of it all was that I had a band. That had been a
really important part of creating the show and I wasn't sure it was
going to happen - but I am so proud of what those guys did. After
that, the rest of Fish Circus saw the show and wanted to be part of
it. The Gazillionaire Band has ranged from three to seven members and
it has always been a huge part of the show."

* What's in store for the future?

"It seems like people take to the Gazillionaire and the show,"
Kalfayan says. "Right now, it looks like we will be doing the show for
a while. Working at the Spiegeltent and with the producers there has
opened up a new world... to be able to do the show in different cities
and in different capacities and to find new audiences."

connect:
myspace.com/voki

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