Armenians dancing to Kurdish folkmusic

Tom Bozgian travels around the world teaching Armenian dance and began teaching Armenian dancing 41 years ago. Teaching Armenian dancing has allowed Bozigian to travel the world and Tom Bozigian conducts classes in Los Angeles with a majority of armenian students.Tom is focused on dances that originated in Van.

Hovaness Badalian

Hovhannes Baldalian was born in 1924 close to Hamadan in Iran 1924 but his parents were from the regions around Urmiye in eastern Kurdistan.
During Tom Bozigian’s dance studies in Armenia (1972-75), he spent time with the famous singer Hovaness Badalian who taught him this Kurdish Armenian dance named after a girl “Naze.” Badalian grew up with Kurds in Tehran, Iran and even spoke kurdish.

Tom´s students

Some of the groups dance source naterial:

• Govend - This is the name of a family of dances of which Kocharee/Halay are members. Govand means encircled, fortified, close-knit which dancers demonstrate in this dance. Immigrants brought the dance to the U.S. from Vaspurakan/Van Province.

• Lorke - Bozigian had the opportunity to learn many variations of this “Vanetsi” dance during his youth. The meaning is shake in Kurdo Persian. Some variations demonstrate “Gagh” (limping) or “Pati Kael” (duck walk) in their movements.

• Jurjena - This dance is named after the rhythm. It hails from Kharpert region (Harput-Mezraa) . As a child, Bozigian had the opportunity to dance with many elderly Kharpert Armenian immigrants in Fresno. His maternal side immigrated from the region. Many interesting dances have evolved through the centuries with this unique rhythm.