User:Gia Gvilava/Art-Gene Festival

The Art-Gene Festival is a well-known and popular cultural festival in Georgia. Festival aims at promotion of the traditional and modern Georgian culture, including folk songs, dances, fine arts, cuisine, martial arts and etc. It is held annually in the different regions of Georgia. Final part of the festival traditionally takes place in the capital city of Georgia [[Tbilisi}} at the Open Air Museum of Ethnography

Art-Gene Festival was founded and is organised by the Georgian NGO “Union of Art Gene”, which is mainly formed by musicians and artists. Two Georgian famous musicians Zaza Korinteli and Niaz Diasamidze are amongst founders of the Art-Gene Festival. 

Festivals presents modern and traditional folk music, exhibitions and sales of folk handicrafts, traditional medicine, traditional martial arts, traditional cuisine and folk games. In parallel with traditional block Art-Gene Festival includes contemporary music and art styles. Festival has developed certain pattern of jamming sessions with folk and modern music and dance, which proved to become one of the trademarks of the Art-Gene festival. Every year the new may theme of the festival is chosen.

The Festival is attended by all generations since it covers the widest range of cultural activities including: arts, crafts, folk music, modern music, martial weaponry, blacksmithery, tannery, cloisonné enamel, apiculture (beekeeping), basket making, knitting, sewing, embroidery, gobelin, cloth and felt making, musical instruments, pottery and ceramics, kilims, weaving, carpentry and stonemasonry, wood carving, jewelry, culinary, traditional medicine, martial arts, dance, etc. Generally emphasizing on fields of activities which are still part of daily life in all versatility of different ethnic groups existing in Georgia.

The festival Art Gene is an ongoing project since 2004 and several recent researches showed that it is the most well organized, by far the most attended and popular public art event in Georgia. 40 000 visitor attendance rate in 2007 revealed further steady 90% increase as in previous years.

History
Art-Gene Festival was founded in 2003 by the Georgian NGO “Union of Art Gene” by the extensive work of many Georgian musicians, civic activists, folklorists and etc. In 2003 the Art Gene group initially began investigating the existence of remaining indigenous Georgian art forms, including folk music, which has been past down from generation to generation forming an integral part of Georgian life. The Art Gene Group traveled throughout all regions of Georgia, investigated over 100 families, who were known to maintain their strong traditions and whose activities were then filmed and recorded on the spot. Most of them were selected to participate in a Gala concert at the first Art Gene festival in Tbilisi in 2004, where they performed in front of a large audience and have been recorded live for further archival purposes and to produce and publish CDs.

Previous Festival’s themes:

2004: Family folklore and polyphonic songs

2005: Traditional crafts and family folklore

2006: Caucasian house, Traditional medicine, folk stories

2007: Internal tourism, handicraft, traditional cuisine,

2008: Presentation of rural migration problems as a serious danger to indigenous cultural heritage, presentation of Foreign Folklore to Georgian society (Asian days)

2009: Georgian ecology and bio products

2010: Georgian language and script