Category: Upcoming

Georgian-American cast features in the upcoming production of Beauty and the Beast

Irinka Kavsadze (Belle), Irakli Kavsadze (Jean Paul – Father), and Nutsa Tediashvili (Claudette – sister) feature in the Synetic Theater production of the Beauty and the Beast co-directed by Ben Cunis & Vato Tsikurishvili. The iconic play, choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili is scheduled to open March 3. Georgian community members and friends will enjoy a special discount code. Be sure to check out our social media and website updates closer to date.

As the theater tells it’s story, “Synetic Theater emerged from the creative vision of founders Georgian immigrants Paata and Irina Tsikurishvili, who emigrated from Georgia in 1995.  Trained in dance, theatre, and film, the Tsikurishvilis combine traditions of the Caucasus with distinctly American styles to tell classic stories through movement, music, technology and visual arts. Synetic made its artistic debut in 2001, with its  first wordless Shakespeare production, Hamlet…the rest is silence, thrilling audiences with its athletic and high-voltage physical theatre. Synetic’s innovative take on Hamlet earned three Helen Hayes Awards: Outstanding Resident Play, Outstanding Choreography, and Outstanding Director.

Synetic Theater has become a monument in the American theater landscape, known for athleticism, character-based storytelling, and stunning visuals presentations. With a large classical repertoire familiar across the globe and a showcase for international stories never before seen by an American audience, Synetic continues to deepen its reach. Synetic Theater’s artistry revolves around the practice of Host & Guest, meaning that everyone is welcome at the table, to share in the host’s meal, and especially all are welcome to create art.”

For more detail about the history of the theater and its founding family, please visit https://synetictheater.org/mission/


A new documentary about Georgia in the works

A team of Georgian and American filmmakers is making a beautiful short documentary in the Caucasus mountains in the Republic of Georgia. The story follows Irakli, an 82-year-old mountain doctor, as he makes house calls on horseback throughout his ancestral homeland of Tusheti along the Russian border. 

Robert Hope is a graduate film student at the University of Texas in collaboration with Georgian documentary filmmaker and Sundance fellow Anna Japaridze. Last October they made a trip to Tusheti to capture footage of many families and shepherds leaving before the only road to the region closes and the remaining few who have decided to stay in the highlands as they prepare for winter. 

They are currently raising funds as they prepare for a 2nd trip back to Georgia in March 2023 to document Irakli and the community that has decided to brave the harsh and isolated winter, dedicated to staying in the highlands year round.

They are working with medical students in the University of Texas Division of Global Health at Dell Medical School to bring medical supplies to the region as well as fundraising to make renovations to Irakli the doctor and Nino the nurse’s homes this winter, as they are currently living in very difficult conditions. 

The team is currently fundraising for their 2nd shoot this March and to bring medical supplies to the region’s highland community. Please consider supporting them by making a tax deductible donation on the project’s website and spreading the word with your community. 

Road to Tusheti in the summertime. 2022. Photo Credit: Salome Tsereteli-Stephens

Georgian Literature Reading Series

As part of our mission to promote Georgian culture, we were pleased to launch the “Virtual Georgian Literature Reading Series.” The goal of the series is to create an informal and interactive forum for those with an interest in Georgian history and culture to read and discuss important Georgian books, both classic and contemporary.

Summer 2022
Guram Dochanashvili’s The First Garment (სამოსელი პირველი)

We are delighted to announce that the next edition of the “Georgian Literature Reading Series” will discuss Guram Dochanashvili’s novel The First Garment (სამოსელი პირველი). For this edition of our series, the meetings will be conducted in Georgian – though you don’t need to be a native speaker to join us. There will be a total of 4 meetings virtually via Zoom on Saturdays from 10:00am to 11:15am ET on the following dates: July 16, July 30, August 13, and August 27. You can sign up here. 

Meetings will be discussion-based and facilitated by Georgian theater and film director, professor Manana Anasashvili, who is currently teaching this novel at Ilia State University. As before, our goal will be to create an informal/interactive forum that allows the participants to share their thoughts about the book. To help make the digital environment as interactive as it can be, participants will be asked to enable their device’s video functionality and have it on during the meetings. The book can be accessed in Georgian on Saba book app as an e-book — Georgian Association might also be able to assist in accessing a PDF version of the book for those who sign up.  

The deadline to sign up is June 16. You can sign up by clicking here.

— About the Book —
The novel follows a young, inexperienced, adventure-seeking man named Domenico who is deeply affected by the appearance and stories of a mysterious refugee in his village, and thus decides to take his inheritance and leave the village to go on adventuring. In this novel, traditional motifs of good, evil, love, morality, and the like are illuminated in a new light and unfold as a dramatic narrative against a background of an odd merging of humor and aesthetics.

Spring 2022
Mikheil Javakhishvili’s Kvachi Kvachantiradze

The second edition of the series discussed Mikheil Javakhishvili’s classic novel Kvachi Kvachantiradze. Members of the Association’s Board of Directors, Stephen Jones and Valerian Sikhuashvili, led the sessions.

— About the Book —
An epic landmark of Georgian literature, Javakhishvili’s novel was published in 1925, 12 years before its author’s murder in the Stalinist Purges; but given its treatment of the Russian elite, it’s a grim marvel he was able to escape the authorities so long. Kvachi Kvachantiradze is a born conman, a wily and indefatigable survivor—as much a distillation of the Georgian character as a great anti-hero in his own right. Beginning as a charismatic youth on the outskirts of Tbilisi, Kvachi demonstrates a taste for money and a talent for obtaining it, posing as a noble after traveling to Russia to seek his fortune.

— Additional/background Reading —
– Charles King. The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus.
– Stephen Jones. The Making of Modern Georgia, 1918-2012: The First Georgian Republic and Its Successors.
– Stephen Kotkin. Stalin, Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928.

Summer 2020
Nino Haratischvili’s The Eighth Life.

The first edition of the series discussed Nino Haratischvili’s internationally acclaimed novel The Eighth Life. Members of the Association’s Board of Directors, Stephen Jones and Valerian Sikhuashvili, led the sessions. The association will provide complimentary copies of the book to those who are currently undergraduate students.

— About the Book —
At the start of the twentieth century, on the edge of the Russian empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. A caution which is justified: this is a recipe for ecstasy that carries a very bitter aftertaste… Stasia learns it from her Georgian father and takes it north, following her new husband, Simon, to his posting at the center of the Russian Revolution in St Petersburg. Stasia’s is only the first in a symphony of grand but all too often doomed romances that swirl from sweet to sour in this epic tale of the red century. Tumbling down the years, and across vast expanses of longing and loss, generation after generation of this compelling family hears echoes and sees reflections.