STORYTELLING AS SPIRITUAL VEHICLE
At Wake Forest University, the mentorship of the poet Dr. Maya Angelou was instrumental in inspiring Ms. Tatoyan's work today as an artist and activist. As a storyteller, she is passionate about art as alchemy -- a means to transform and sublimate trauma.
Ms. Tatoyan is the founder of Hakawati. Among other things, Hakawati will provide storytelling workshops in various disciplines of cinema in partnership with The Sundance Institute, to frontline communities in order to foster and amplify the voices and narratives of those from which we hear too little.
In 2016, Ms. Tatoyan served on the World Cinema Jury of the Duhok International Film Festival in Kurdistan. She attended the FiSahara Film Festival in the Dakhla refugee camp of Algeria to speak on a panel about Occupied Peoples, Memory and Resistance, to raise awareness of the Sahrawi cause.
Spring/Summer 2017, Ms. Tatoyan served as the Rudolf Arnheim guest artist professor at Humboldt University in Berlin and delivered a talk at the Brandenburger Gate Foundation entitled "Storytelling as a Spiritual Vehicle: A response to the Armenian Genocide and the Syrian refugee crisis."
Fall 2019, Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University welcomed Ms. Tatoyan and artist and puppet master Ayhan Hülagü to speak about finding her Armenian great-great grandfather's Karagöz puppets in the abandoned family home in Aleppo, Syria in ta talk entitled "Trauma, magic love: Being in Aleppo with my ancestors, Karagöz puppets and the spirit of Osman Kavala."
March 2021, Ms. Tatoyan gave a talk for MEG cultural organization entitled "Scherazad, Storytelling and Facing Trauma: Armenianness, the feminine, and creation as antidote to destruction."
Currently Ms. Tatoyan is available to deliver her storytelling piece Azad. For inquiries please contact [email protected]
Ms. Tatoyan is the founder of Hakawati. Among other things, Hakawati will provide storytelling workshops in various disciplines of cinema in partnership with The Sundance Institute, to frontline communities in order to foster and amplify the voices and narratives of those from which we hear too little.
In 2016, Ms. Tatoyan served on the World Cinema Jury of the Duhok International Film Festival in Kurdistan. She attended the FiSahara Film Festival in the Dakhla refugee camp of Algeria to speak on a panel about Occupied Peoples, Memory and Resistance, to raise awareness of the Sahrawi cause.
Spring/Summer 2017, Ms. Tatoyan served as the Rudolf Arnheim guest artist professor at Humboldt University in Berlin and delivered a talk at the Brandenburger Gate Foundation entitled "Storytelling as a Spiritual Vehicle: A response to the Armenian Genocide and the Syrian refugee crisis."
Fall 2019, Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University welcomed Ms. Tatoyan and artist and puppet master Ayhan Hülagü to speak about finding her Armenian great-great grandfather's Karagöz puppets in the abandoned family home in Aleppo, Syria in ta talk entitled "Trauma, magic love: Being in Aleppo with my ancestors, Karagöz puppets and the spirit of Osman Kavala."
March 2021, Ms. Tatoyan gave a talk for MEG cultural organization entitled "Scherazad, Storytelling and Facing Trauma: Armenianness, the feminine, and creation as antidote to destruction."
Currently Ms. Tatoyan is available to deliver her storytelling piece Azad. For inquiries please contact [email protected]