Gafar Rustamovich Valamat-Zade

Born Apr. 26 (May 9), 1916, in Khodzhent (now Kairakkum), Tadzhik SSR. Soviet ballet dancer, choreographer, and director. People’s Artist of the Tadzhik SSR (1945). Member of the CPSU since 1942.

In the 1930’s and 1940’s, Valamat-Zade studied at a music and theatrical technicum in Leninabad, at a choreographic school, and at the A. V. Lunacharskii Institute of Theatrical Arts in Moscow. From 1951 to 1963 he was the principal choreographer at the S. Aini Theater of Opera and Ballet in Dushanbe. He staged various dances in Lenskii’s Du Gul’ (Two Roses; 1941), the first Tadzhik ballet, as well as Balasanian’s ballet Leili and Medzhnun (1947; State Prize of the USSR, 1949), Asafev’s ballet The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1954), Vol’berg’s ballet The Blue Carpet, (1958, scenario by Valamat-Zade), Balasanian’s opera The Vose Uprising (1958), Iudakov’s opera Pranks of Maisara (1962), and other works. In 1963 he became director and artistic manager of the Rudaki Tadzhik Philharmonic Society. He has been director of the dance ensemble Lola since 1965. A deputy to the second through fifth and the seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the Tadzhik SSR, Valamat-Zade has been awarded the Order of Lenin, three other orders, and various medals.