Tigran Sargsyan

Photo: Tigran Sargsyan with his coach Akos Sebestyan

Just before the Foyer of the Théâtre de Beaulieu started to fill up with ballet students for the Daily Dance Dialogues wit Li Cunxin, we had a chance to catch up with one of the candidates, Tigran Sargsyan. He spoke to us about his journey from his home country Armenia to the Tanzakademie Zürich and his experience this far.

This is your first time at the Prix, how are you finding it so far? 

It is a very nice competition, I am enjoying it. It was always one of my goals to come here!

You train in Zürich but you’re originally from Armenia? 

Yes, at first I started to train at the Yerevan Ballet School. Later, I decided to send my video to European ballet schools because I really wanted to train in a different style. Zürich accepted me and I decided to come here. I have been there for 2 years.

What has been the best thing at the Prix so far? 

The modern classes! I really enjoy those because the coach teaches us a lot of new techniques and styles. I also like the classical coaching, Patrick Armand shows everything perfectly – a bit fast – it is a lot to process, but he is very nice.

What is the difference between being coached the variations at school and here? 

At school the teachers can take a lot more time for you. Here you only have 5 minutes for individual coaching, so you have to react very quickly. We already worked on the variations a lot at our home schools, so now we just have to show what we’ve got and apply corrections. I think the jury is really looking for clean technique. The height of jumps or number of turns is maybe less important.

How did you go about choosing your variations? 

My choice for classical variation, Le Corsaire, suits my character, I just enjoy dancing it. For contemporary I chose the solo from “Desde Otello” by Goyo Montero. I picked it because it goes really deep. It is the part from the Shakespeare play when Othello decides to kill Desdemona, he is very angry and sad at the same time. When I do this variation, I really feel it: I concentrate and I am really inside it.