Norayr Mehrabyan, People’s Artist of Armenia and founder of the Barekamutyun State Dance Ensemble of Armenia, passed away on November 13 at the age of 85, reports Zartonk Media.
The National Center of Folk Music and Dance announced his passing, calling it an irreparable and profound loss for Armenian dance.
“The entire staff of the Center expresses its deepest condolences to the master’s family, relatives, colleagues, students, and all those who appreciated his art,” the Center said.
Mehrabyan was born in Yerevan on January 4, 1941. He trained at the Yerevan Choreographic School and joined the ballet company of the Alexander Spendiaryan National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre as a soloist in 1959, where he danced for a decade. His roles included Karen in Aram Khachaturian’s “Gayane,” the Bridegroom in Spendiaryan’s “Khandut,” the Jester in Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake,” Basil in Minkus’s “Don Quixote” and Tybalt in Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet.”
In 1970 he was invited to Leningrad by the ballet master Leonid Yakobson and spent about 3 years in his Choreographic Miniatures company. He returned to Yerevan as artistic director of the Yerevan Choreographic School from 1973 to 1983, teaching classical dance and staging his first works, among them Bizet’s “Youth Symphony,” Khachaturian’s “Russian Dance” and Khachatur Avetisyan’s “Zartonk.”
He danced with the State Dance Ensemble of Armenia and led the Opera Theatre’s ballet company from 1984 to 1986. In 1987 the Barekamutyun State Dance Ensemble of Armenia was created on his initiative, and he led it for the rest of his life.
Mehrabyan built Armenian dance companies outside Armenia as well, forming groups and ensembles in the Armenian communities of Beirut, Cyprus, Aleppo and Los Angeles. He was invited to work with the Hamazkayin “Ani” ensemble and with the “Yeraz” dance group in France.
His choreography drew on Komitas, Sayat-Nova and Khachaturian, with stagings of “Tsirani Tsar,” “Krunk,” the “Vagharshapat Dance” and the “Sabre Dance,” and extended to work by Avet Terteryan, Tigran Mansuryan, Edgar Hovhannisyan and Loris Tjeknavorian.
He was named Honored Artist of the Armenian SSR in 1976 and People’s Artist of Armenia in 2006, and held the Movses Khorenatsi Medal, the Komitas Medal of the Ministry of Diaspora, a 2024 medal from the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, and the title of Honorary Citizen of Yerevan.
On May 25, 2026, President Vahagn Khachaturyan awarded him the Order of St. Mesrop Mashtots for his contribution to culture and to the preservation of Armenian identity. He received it 6 months before his passing.
