This year we were excited to discover that the US Naval Academy has three first year students from Georgia. Through a relationship with these new students OLEG was asked to do a short presentation on Georgian culture at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis on Saturday October 24th, 2009. The Saturday morning class featured presentations about cultures and issues from the "Eurasia" region. Dressed in traditional outfits Mariam Aduashvili, Nini Aduashvili and Noel Brockett attended the event and gave a short presentation centered around Georgian dance and music. They showed dances from the fantastic "Georgian Legend" show put on by the Erisioni ensemble. Some of the presentations before OLEG's centered on the problems caused by conflicts and poverty in various parts of the region.  "War and struggle are definately a part of where we come from," said Nini Aduashvili, "but we want to show you how these conflicts can be expressed in other mediums, such as the art of movement, dance."  The presentation showed the midshipmen a dance about war "Khorumi"(View this dance below),  a dance about warriors "Parikaoba"(View this dance below) and a dance of celebration "Acharuli".

"After listening, we were still quite surprised at the perception of Georgian culture in America" said Noel Brockett, "Georgian culture continues to be considered the same as or very similar to Russian. Though this is true in some cases, Georgia does differ in many ways. One example of course is language. Most do not know that Georgian is not Slavic in origin and continue to think that it is just now reappearing. Though the language was under attack under Russian rule and did struggle particularly in the 1800's there was never a generation of Georgians who did not learn Georgian as their first language. Even during the Soviet Union movies were produced in Georgian that were vastly popular in all of the Soviet Republics." The midshipmen and their professors were quite interested in the presentation and impressed by the dances. OLEG found some interest in holding workshops on Georgia Dance in a Russian class for midshipmen starting next semester. Also, OLEG discovered some interest in our peace project efforts in Georgia from some non-midshipmen attendees.

OLEG was excited and grateful for the opportunity to share the Georgian culture with the Academy. We want to thank our Georgian midshipmen and their professors for putting on the event and inviting us. Below you can see some of the dances that we shared in the presentation. Enjoy!