Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The Culture and Art Development Foundation under the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Uzbekistan opens a pilot project for the Center for Contemporary Art in Tashkent, which will start its operation on 12 April 2019.

The large-scale project includes: the opening of the exhibition, holding a performance, lectures, seminars, film screenings, as well as children’s and family workshops with the participation of international guests, which will be held from 13 April to 1 June.

One of the events will be the musical performance “Qyrq Qyz” by an Uzbek director and video artist Saodat Ismailova. The Foundation, together with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture international foundation, on 16 and 17 April 2019 will present the performance for the first time in Tashkent on the stage of the Alisher Navoi State Academic Bolshoi Theater.

The heroic epic “Qyrq Qyz” is a literary image of the Karakalpak people. This is a multi-layered and multi-faceted historical and ethnographic monument, which is about 2000 years old. The video of the play was filmed in Karakalpakstan, as well as in one of the oldest mosques in Tashkent, Azlarkhon Eshon Masjidi.

The hour and a half production fragmentary reconstructs the history of the Karakalpak epic in musical and artistic abstract form. The composer Dmitry Yanov-Yanovsky, the author of music from more than 20 feature films, winner of several awards and awards at international festivals, took part in the work on the production.

The performance features numerous folk instruments, representing the classical schools of vocal art of Central Asia: tanovar of Uzbekistan, dastans, fat (throat singing) and prolonged singing of Karakalpakstan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

“Central Asia is a terra incognita, not opened, filled, bottomless chest, which, in its time, spawned and brought up highly developed civilizations, uniting various ethnic groups, religions and cultures. This space is my backbone, my strength and personality. It seems to me that this land is so generously saturated that there is still a lot of creative work ahead of us,” Saodat Ismailova said about his projects.

The musical performance “Qyrq Qyz” in Tashkent will be presented for the first time and will acquaint the public with the musical culture of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. All visitors waiting for half an hour of live music, accompanied by a unique film. Tickets for the performance are distributed from March 12, 2019 at the box office of Alisher Navoi Theater, at sales offices and the electronic portal Iticket.uz.