From October 5-9 2008, Fine5 Dance Theatre participated in the international theatre festival HighFest in Armenia. During 9 days, 30 theatres representing different performing arts - street theatre, childrens' theatre, puppy theatre, experimental theatre, contemporary drama and dance theatre - gathered in Yerevan. HighFest, which hosted over 400 participants and over 100 performances, took place for the 6th time and the organizers have named the festival the biggest theatre festival in the Eastern/Southern European and Russian region.
Although Fine5 arrived in Yerevan a day after their announced date of performance of "BET ver. II" in the festival program (a "small" mistake by the organizers), it was wonderful, how in the conditions of total chaos, everything necessary for the performance "appeared" by the rearranged performance time: performance space, attending personnel, technical equipment, audience, even the contrabass used in Fine5's piece. The phenomenon of Armenia turned out to be simultaneous uncertainty and the total functioning of everything, which is only be possible due to the eternally helpful people. 13 different-sized professional stages (with 60-600 seats) were used during the festival; in addition, a movie theatre was used, where a movie program introducing contemporary theatre was shown; several performances were held on the streets. It seemed that the armenian people fond of their traditions enjoyed equally the contemporary pop-icon of European dramaturgy Mark Ravenhill, as well as their own avant-garde classical artist Sergei Paradjanov. Perhaps their over 2000-year-old theater making history and a constant interest in both domestic and foreign perceptions on theatre play a role in this.
Fine5 performed its piece "BET ver.II" on the Yerevan Youth Theatre stage on October 6 at 7 PM. A group of 7 members participated in the Yerevan festival, getting to know the city's theatres and cultural heritage with support from the Estonian Cultural Endowment's endowment for performing arts.
