Ageless gene
By Nutsa Eristavi
Monday, Jyly 14
In less than 2 weeks, the folk festival Art-Gene will held at the Ethnographic Museum in Tbilisi. Now in its 11th year, Art-gene kicks-off on the 20th of July and will continue for 7 days featuring a plethora of concerts and exhibitions.
Everything started in 2003, when a group of friends decided to travel to the regions of Georgia, investigate families who were known to maintain their strong traditions and bring them together in one place. Art-Gene offers a look at Georgia’s roots from the old generations. The festival will cover a wide range of cultural activities including folk music, modern music, jewelry, knitting, cloth and felt-making, culinary, marital arts dance and much more…
Festival is educational and encourages people to think about the importance of family, heritage and to respect the old generation. It also encourages the passing of old traditions to the younger generation.
‘’With our intention to promote folk and traditional music in the younger generations, we initially attracted them with popular rock concerts in the evenings, but to attend those they had to listen to the traditional folk concerts first, and consequently today this is no longer necessary, as all folk concerts are fully-attended by the audience, who now only come to listen to their traditional music.
The method of combining modern with the traditional to promote the later proved to be very successful and gave us a strong indication of possibly using similar methods in promoting traditional crafts, which are one of the major segments of our festival,‘’ founder of the Union of Art-gene and crafts coordinator (GE) Tamar Melikishvili
There is the smell of green grass and old wooden houses at the Ethnographic Museum. The relations between the guest and the participants of the festival are also very warm and natural. The Georgian folklore and the polyphonic songs in the background will open your heart and make you think about something really valuable.
20th of July
18:30 - 22:00 Folklore from "Samegrelo"
22:00 Evening concert : Tamaz Kurashvili and Friends
21st of July
18:30 - 22:00 Folklore from "Shida Kartli", Mtskheta-Mtianeti, Abhazia day
22:00 Evening concert : band "Chveneburebi"
22th of July
18:30 - 22:00 Folklore from "Samtskhe-Javakheti", Guria, Samachablo day
22:00 Evening concert : band "Regioni", "Prani"
23th of July
18:30 - 22:00 Folklore from Kvemo Kartli, Svaneti
22:00 Evening concert : Nika Kacharov - Robi Kuhianidze
24th of July
18:30 - 22:00 Folklore from Kakheti, Lechkhumi
22:00 Evening concert : "Sukhishvili"
25 th of July
18:30 - 22:00 Folklore from Imereti
22:00 Evening concert : band "Zumbaland"
26th of July
18:30 - 22:00 Folklore from Achara
22:00 Evening concert : Nino Katamadze
27th of July
18:30 - 22:00 Folklore from Racha
22:00 Evening concert : band "33?"
