Architectural plans include a performance house, three studios with nine dressing rooms, multi-functional conference room, library, gallery space, café-gift shop and a sculpture garden. With all these elements, we see the Center quickly becoming an inspirational place sure to revitalize Gyumri and reawaken a modern, innovative passion for world-class performing arts.

The Kharatian Experiential Centre for the Performing Arts is set to begin construction in 2019, and to open in 2022.

“What is interesting is that we’re talking about a place where gravity was once such a destructive force, where the earthquake brought such terror and loss. Now, in that same place, within those same walls, if we do things right, the building can literally float, even soar. At the same time, the people who use the building will themselves be lifted, both literally and spiritually.
Dance has that same vocation. We want to taunt gravity.”

Azad Chichmanian

Kharatian’s method focuses on interlacing different components of American, European, and Russian approaches to dance as well as of various martial arts. The synthesis of these approaches creates an innovative understanding of ballet that is uniquely crafted and very effective.
His innovative approach to ballet explores movement on three different levels: physical, mental, and emotional. On the physical level, his methodology strengthens the body, creating flexibility, muscle memory, speed, coordination – everything needed for today’s ever-developing demands. The mental level controls the physical body within the space, and how to execute the choreography. The physical and the mental create the emotional level, creating what the viewer will feel. By looking at movement on these three levels, and by inscribing this understanding within the understanding of dance as an inherently scientific art, Kharatian’s philosophy of movement pushes new boundaries.

His teaching is built on the belief that ballet, as the confluence of athletics, spirituality, and artistry, is a transcendent tool that rallies humanity. These ideas guide his vision for the Center.