YEREVAN, MAY 8, ARMENPRESS. Commotion has descended upon one of Yerevan’s oldest neighborhoods since early Wednesday morning. People hurrying to Kond neighborhood with their cameras on stand-by, noise and excitement all over the place. The reason? Armenian pop start Sirusho is in the block, shooting her latest music video. She had told her fans in advance via Instagram that she will be in Kond, and the area was full of fans.

Kond, a neighborhood within downtown of the city, mostly known for its ever-lasting halted construction projects, traffic jams and simplicity, is probably one of the best places one can see the quintessential Armenian everyday, ordinary things, such as backgammon games, music and neighborhood life. And today’s sneak-peek into Sirusho’s upcoming video seemingly showed that the pop star wants to include all of this in the clip.

Sirusho herself was seen playing backgammon, dancing on a car’s hood and having fun during the shooting.

“Being in character as a woman playing backgammon was unusual for me. This time we tried to emphasize the Armenian character from the side that hasn’t been addressed before. We are mostly trying to present the Armenian culture with all its tones, through various solutions,” Sirusho told reporters at the shooting location.

The pop star is filming a music video for her version of Zoma Zoma, an old Armenian folk song, most commonly known as Զի՞նչ ու զի՞նչ տամ լողվորչուն. The song was famously re-composed by Komitas, the renowned 20th century musicologist and founder of the Armenian national school of music. This isn’t the first time Sirusho is turning to Komitas as inspiration: her popular song PreGomesh was also a remix of a Komitas folk song.

She performed her version of Zoma Zoma most recently at the DIAFA Awards, where she became the first Armenian to be awarded the Distinctive International Arab Festivals Awards.

“Zoma Zoma is one of the songs that we wanted to film a music video all the time, but we couldn’t find the missing part that was needed for the clip,” she said, adding that after discussions and lengthy search, they understood that the music video should be filmed in Kond.

Sirusho says she is visiting the neighborhood for already a few days and is meeting the locals.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan