My Sweet Georgia - local tourist portal

Georgian Embassy s Employee in Israel Claims 1st Place at Kalmi Piano Competition

Tbilisi to Host Ballet Festival on June 23-July 1
The Ballet Festival, which was established last year, will open in Tbilisi on June 23 and close on July 1 at the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theater. Within the program of the Festival, spectators will be able to see the performances of distinguished ballet stars and prominent ballet companies. The Festival will be opened on June 23 with a program consisting of a world premiere of the resident choreographer Medhi Walerski  Orawa, and another ballet of his  Petite Cérémonie. Rossini Overtures and Formami of Mario Astolfi and his Spellbound Contemporary Ballet will become a welcomed addition to Medhi s creations. This will be the first visit of Spellbound Contemporary Ballet to Georgia. American superstar Marcelo Gomes will also take part in the festival and together with Artistic Director of the Festival, Nina Ananiashvili, he will perform in Romeo and Juliet on June 26. The Nederlands Dans Theater 2, are back in the festival, their first time being in 2017. They will present Sad Case and Subtle Dust of Sol León  Paul Lightfoot, WirsagenunsDunkles and Midnight Raga of Marco Goecke, and Short Cut of Hans van Manen on June 28-29. The festival will be closed by The Sleeping Beauty with the participation of Nutsa Chekurashvili, Nino Samadashvili, Ekaterine Surmava, Ruika Yokoyama, Amandine Etoiles Albisson and Jérémy-Loup Quer from the Paris Opera Ballet and Marcelo Gomes. The conductor of the performances will be Alevtina Ioffe (Russia).   The Festival is held with support of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia and project =Check in Georgia=.   Sponsors and supporters: Ministry of Culture and Sports, Tbilisi City Hall, Embassies of Italy and the Netherlands, Italy Authors and Publishers Society (SIAE), Italian Cultural Heritage Ministry (MiBACT), Georgian Ballet Friends Society, TBC Bank, Hotel IOTA, Company Wissol, Château Mukhrani, TV Company Imedi, Radio Imedi, Radio Fortuna, TV Company ARTAREA, Indigo and City, Kikala Studio, Georgia Today. You can see the festival program here. Tickets are available here.

19th Century Nobility Portraits on Display in Sighnaghi
Eastern Georgia s picturesque town of Sighnaghi is set to host an exhibition of 19th century portraits of the country s noble families, showcasing their legacy and artistic trends of the era. Hosted by the Georgian National Museum at the network s Sighnaghi Museum venue, the show will be centered around over 40 paintings of historical figures of the royal court and nobility, including King Erekle II, Queen Darejan and Tekla Batonishvili, which will form the central point of the exhibits. Organizers revealed some of the exhibits would be displayed publicly for the first time, a part of them following conservation and restoration work carried out by experts. At its emergence, portrait art for royal court personalities in Georgia had commonalities with the European genre of the same type. However, they also feature the distinct manner of their painters and influences generated by Georgia s ties with Imperial Russia and the Western world. This later evolved into a style referred to as the =Tiflis Portrait School,= titled after the old name for the capital city. In works created under this School, smaller-size portraits featured feudal era nobility and the new bourgeoisie, with the style of works persisting until the 1860s and 1870s. Beside the paintings, the exhibition, to last until September 21, it will also include works in sculpture and miniature genres.

Gov t Finances Anaklia Echo Waves Instead of GEM Fest
This summer the government will allocate funds for Anaklia Echo Waves Festival instead of the Georgian Electronic Music Festival (GEM Fest). The Anaklia Echo Waves Festival will be funded within the Check in Georgia Project and will get 4,160,000 GEL from the state budget. According to the governmental order, the festival Anaklia Echo Waves is to be a very important tourist-cultural event. The festival will be held in Anaklia on August 23-26, 2018. The total cost of the project is 6 million GEL. The remaining 2 million GEL will be provided by the festival organizers. According to the National Tourism Administration, among the festival participant artists will be: Solomun Juan Atkins Dzijan Emin GPO Francesco Tristano Guti live The National Tourism Administration states that negotiations are ongoing with world-renowned live performers and DJs who will make the festival more solid and attractive. In addition to music, the festival includes sports and recreational activities, various artistic and cultural events, and social and educational projects. The festival will be held under the umbrella of EXIT one of the best and most popular festivals in Europe. EXIT has been held in Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Romania and Bosnia since 2000. As for the GEM Fest, the month-long electronic music festival was held for the third time in Georgia from July 14 to August 14 in Georgia s Black Sea town of Anaklia in 2017. Despite the large number of world-famous artists and DJs, this year the festival experienced numerous problems, including the death of a 22-year old girl and poisoning of more than 20 others, allegedly due to psychoactive drug -Bio- or Gamma-Hydroxybutyrate (GHB), which has been seen increasingly throughout Georgia of late. Another problem alleged financial violations during the festival, for which the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia launched an investigation in August. Due to these financial issues, around 300 employees of the festival complained they had not received their salaries. Giorgi Sigua, the founder and the organizer of GEM Fest, denied the allegations of embezzlement. He said he intends to hold the GEM festival in Anaklia, using his own funds, on August 9-12. By Thea Morrison

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