“WHEN I WAS A STUDENT” WITH IGOR DZAMBAZOV: SINCE THE FIRST YEAR OF STUDYING I REALISED THAT I SHOULD TRY HARD, NOT TO LET DOWN MY MOTHER ANCHE, AND ESPECIALLY MY GRANDFATHER PETRE
With an average score of 9.24 of the “FDA” (faculty of drama arts), he was declared as one of the ten best students at the University “St. Cyril and Methodius”
I graduated in “Georgi Dimitrov” High School in 1981. I was the second generation of high school students who were obliged by the law to serve in the military. In June, the same year I passed the entrance exam in the class of professor Vukan Dinevski, together with another 14 young, frightened boys and girls whose common dream was to become actors. Then, began the most beautiful period of my life – this is how we open the students’ story of the actor Igor Dzambazov.
Through photos and memories, Fakulteti.mk in cooperation with “Pivara Skopje” will take you back in time when Dzambazov made his first professional steps on the theater stage.
Dzambazov is an actor who in the past three decades has occasionally distanced himself from the theater, but he always returned to it. At the moment, he is part of the ensemble of the Macedonian National Theater, where he plays “Marriage Game” with Vesna Petrushevska and “Speech disorder” on the repertoire.
Igor had all the predispositions to become a “man”, but he chose to become an actor – these are the words of the died actor Slavko Ninov at the promotion of the book of Dzambazov. His readers will be able to witness his poetry, finely packed in the edition ” Street Deep breathing” published by “TRI”, which will be promoted tomorrow, December 27th at 7 pm at the “Vip Baza” Restaurant at “American College”.
Coming from an artistic family, the unforgettable actors – his mother Anche Dzambazova, his grandfather Petre Prlicko and his father, composer Aleksandar Dzambazov, Igor had no dilemma whether to enroll at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, which was not a case with his parents.
– My mother thought that this profession at that time was not appreciated as much as it should be, and was constantly telling me that I will live a much better life if I enroll in another faculty, something completely different. But I was determined to be an actor at any cost from the moment of performing in the movie” The Magic Saddle” – says Dzambazov.
He admits that he needs to prove much more specifically because of his origin.
– Not because it was needed, but because I wanted so. And even in the first year on the Academy, I realized that I would have to do a lot, to do more, not to let down my mother Anche, and especially my grandfather Petre. Every time I was in a crisis, and I had many moments like that at the very beginning, I thought of them and this gave me some strange, invisible injection that made me move on.
He admits he was very interested in studying psychology, but there were no conditions for that because of the FDA’s too many engagements.
– I was terribly interested in that. However, really there were no conditions for that. Studying the FDA was very hard. From morning till night, we had classes, exercises, lectures, and that was simply not possible. However, I was extremely happy when in the third and fourth year we had an subject called Theatrical Psychology, by one of the greatest experts on this subject in that time, now the late Miodrag Mitsev. And those four semesters with that subject, helped me a lot later in life when I was preparing myself and playing some famous but complicated characters from the world drama, “explains the actor.
Igor had complete support from his professor Dinevski, with whom he previously played in several television series and theater plays. Dzambazov describes him as “a very strict but correct man and a true pedagogue”.
– The study of the FDA was different from all the other faculties. The relationship with the professors were more than friendly. And we were together every day. We practically were there for whole days. We learned the texts about the acting classes and stage speech at the faculty, and we used every possible pause so we could use the theater stage for some acting tests. We had a lot of friendships.
We spent time with each other, we visited each other in our homes every day, we prepared exams, we were helping each other during hard time … I must admit that I was very close friend with Maria Kondovska, with Aleksandar Malinkov from Kavadarci, but most of all, of course, with Branko Gjorcev. On January 15, 1987, we were both got employed at the Drama Theater, and I think at that moment that we were up in air from happines- reminds Igor.
Admits that he had a terrible trembling before the exams.
– These are the moments when you realize that you are far from good and that you will need a lot of a sweat so that you can fulfill the criteria of the professors, who at that time was really high. Sometimes I was very close to giving up, and sometimes I simply didn’t know how to do something exactly as they asked from me. Branko also had the same problems and obstacles (both of us were sons of good actors), who on such occasions always said his famous saying: “Now I know that I do not know anything,” he says, and he admits that he quickly realized that the grades of his faculty are not important at all.
However, despite this, Igor finished with an average grade of 9.24 and was named one of the ten best students of the fourth year at the University “St. Cyril and Methodius”. Acting is a craft. You have to learn, but most importantly, everything is just in one thing – Does it work for you, or not, claims Dzhambazov.
– My grandfather Prlicko said: “To be a good actor, you need to have in your head, in your heart, and your balls.” The professionalism that our professors gave me was a virus, that remained in me even today. And I still arrive at the play for an hour and a half before the start, and the rehearsals in the morning are not a problem for me because the classes in acting in our class started at 8 am!
Igor says that with the colleagues, they were exchanging critics among themselves , and vanity was not allowed in their friendship, “although every actor should have it.
“- Vanity is an additional motive. Bad critics – too. The most dangerous are those that we used to call “tappers on the shoulder”. When you’re desperate on stage – They say that you are ingenious. When you’re brilliant- they say you’re average.
Acting a lot of plays in Drama Theater (“Sin or Spritzer”, “Whose are you,” “Female Orchestra” …) were his real acting school.
– I would not like to make somebody angy, but everything I learned about this profession I learned in the Drama Theater. The Academy teaches theory, and in theater – it’s the practice. During the four years of studying, I was going there, watching at all the plays. Some of them hundreds of times and I enjoyed it. I enjoy it today, but not when I watch, but when I play – shares Dzambazov.
