Direction: Ani Javian

Performance: Mary Bayatyan, Ani Javian, Karen Khachatryan, Mila Harutyunyan, Sona Pogossian, Anoosh Sarkisyan, and Hasmik Tangyan

Sound: composed and performed by Aaron Michael Butler, oral history with Beatrice Javian (2015), “Groung” as sung by Zabelle Panossian, field recordings from Yerevan (2019); field recordings from Javian’s family (2022, people and homes listed below)

Costumes: Ani Javian and Millie Hiibel

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Armenian Center for Contemporary and Experimental Art

Yerevan, Armenia

August 20, 2022  

the earth is old, we are ancient is a multi-media, movement-based work that utilizes improvisation, video collage, installation, and sound to excavate inherited histories, asking, “In what ways do I hold ancestral memories, knowledge, and stories in my body?” and “In what ways is my body, in this time and space, ‘historic?’”

This project was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, a Rutgers University Research Council Grant, Rutgers University’s Byrne Seminar, and a Rutgers University COVID Impact on Scholarly Productivity Grant.