For immediate release:

Contact:
Lucig Kebranian  - LKebranian@icp.org
Alec Gevorkyan   - agevorkyan@hotmail.com


Arpie Dadoyan's  "Ipenkim" at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in Manhattan
				

Mew Milford, NJ - After successful runs in Boston, Albany, Providence, 
Montreal, New Jersey and Long Island, Ipenkim will have its premiere in 
Manhattan, organized by the Armenian Students' Association of New York.

Arpie Dadoyan will be performing the show she wrote and directed, in 
Armenian, at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 236 E. 3rd Street (between Avenues B 
and C off Houston Street) in New York on May 13, Tuesday at 7 p.m.  
Entrance is $12.00.

Born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon Arpie Dadoyan studied at Hamazkain's 
Neshan Palandjian Djemaran. Later, she was a member of the Levon Shant 
Theatre Group of Bourj Hammoud under the direction of Varoujan Hadeshian.  
Among other roles, she played Tatiana in Chekhov's Jubilee, Elizabeth in 
Arthur Miller's The Crucible, The Countess in Labiche's Italian Straw Hat 
and Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.  With the latter role, Arpie 
brought unprecedented umph to the Armenian theatre and was highly praised 
in both Armenian and local newspapers.  The group renamed itself Theatre 67 
and after playing Rossignol in Peter Weiss' Marat Sade she emigrated to the 
United States.

Arpie studied acting at HB Studios in Manhattan, took private voice lessons 
from Raven Kane and dance lessons from the late Annie Dabat in Los Angeles. 

She sang in many cities on both coasts and abroad, including two years, 
in the mid-eighties, at the famous Ararat-Dardanelles Restaurant in 
Manhattan, as an interpreter of French and Armenian songs and took part in 
a few Armenian plays in L.A. and New York as well as in motion pictures.

With Ipenkim she makes her debut as a writer, director and solo-performer.

Ipenkim is about a beginning, then another, then another.  It is the story 
of a misplaced people seen through the eyes and heart of a woman and 
expressed through the recounting of small vignettes from her life.  Through 
laughter she comes to terms with her past and with her lost and refound 
identity.

In Horizon Weekly, Raffi Ajemian writes: "The audience, in a matter of 
hours, takes a magic journey into the not too distant past and returns.  A 
journey, in the course of which one encounters old and new acquaintances, 
as well as customs and traditions which continue to this day.  But 
specially, one encounters oneself."

"Laughter is the best friend of good health" says Arpie "but I have 
included some serious moments in the show, both in songs and words".