Let’s Find in Each Other What We Don’t Have

“I also know, darkness is always next to the light;
therefore I always try to smile,
even if I’m sad most of the time.”

Let’s Find in Each Other What We Don’t Have

The Let’s Find in Each Other What We Don’t Have text by the Armenian poet Heranuş Arşagyan, who died in 1905 at the age of 17 due to tuberculosis has been compiled the verses she had collected during her illness in Western Armenian, which has been on the UNESCO’s Endangered Languages list in recent years, she called out to find solace in Hrant by “finding in each other together”.

5 years after Heranuş’s death at a very young age, “hangardz” staged these lines in 2008 at the Synergy World Theatre Festival held in Novi Sad, Serbia as a world premiere, which were rescued from the “lap of oblivion” by being published by his pen pal and relative, Hrant Nazaryants, based on the poet’s life.

One of the team members who brought this unfinished story together with the audience, Lara Narin, who is also the lead singer of the Armenian alternative band “Vomank,” summarizes this discovery as follows: 

“Our preliminary research for the Panalik album, released by Vomank in 2017, led us to the world of Armenian poets. This search, deepened with the accurate intuitions of Sevan Değirmenciyan, who is an Armenian literary historian and editor of Aras Publishing, enabled us to meet with Heranuş Arşagyan’s plain words and fragile nature, which still maintains its influence. Thus, we not only composed the poet’s Hin Yerazner (Old Dreams) poem and included it in the album, but it also inspired me for the first project of “hangardz”. “

Actor Yeğya Akgün, who is also the director of the play, describes the starting points as follows: 

“with our goal of bringing a new breath to the Armenian theater of Istanbul with our years of friendship and the theater infrastructure we have; with these lines waiting for the right time in Lara’s saddlebag, it turned into a long-term journey that also included the festival experience. We see that Heranuş accumulates lines in that black chest, not knowing whether the word heart will be heard or not… Her waning unknown time, was it a curse or a blessing…? We are happy to meet with the Istanbul audience to answer this question.” We are thrilled to answer this question at the important theatres and its audience of Istanbul, where Arşagyan was born and lived. 

Heranuş Arşagyan:

She was born in Beşiktaş on July 28th, 1887. Heranuş, who lost her father, Hagop Arşag, who was one of the important figures of Armenian intellectual life, when she was only 3 years old, her interest in literature and poetry was noticed from an early age.Her ability to observe and describe emerged in her lines as a reflection of her emotional nature. 

She retired to her farmhouse in Yedikule due to the tuberculosis she caught at the age of 15, and wrote her poems, which never lost their influence even today, during this sensitive period. After her death, she was buried in Şişli Armenian Cemetery, as her final resting place.

Team