Academic Studies Series Session: 10
Experiencing the Armenian Language through Ecosomatic and Interdisciplinary Performativities
11 March 2025 | 18:00–19:30
Online (Zoom)
Lerna Babikyan | Speaker
The tenth session of the Academic Studies series continued with its sixteenth guest, Lerna Babikyan, presenting “Experiencing the Armenian Language through Ecosomatic and Interdisciplinary Performativities.” In her presentation, Babikyan shared her work on alphabets through the interconnected contexts of dance, cultural learning, education, and academia, tracing the development of her research in chronological order.
The session moved through encounters with memory, archaeology, semantics, and ecology that emerged throughout her process, while also reflecting on practices of “reshaping” that have become part of her artistic and pedagogical journey. Drawing from her master’s thesis, Babikyan presented selections from a teacher’s manual she developed for experiencing the Armenian language through ecosomatic methodologies and invited participants to collectively engage in practical exercises derived from her workshops.
Lerna Babikyan is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and writer working through dance and movement-based practices. Inspired by deep ecology and relationality, she develops innovative programs that merge creative movement with education. Across workshops, presentations, and performances, Babikyan employs dance as a tool for learning, cultural plurality, and individual and collective transformation through an inclusive approach.
Her work brings together themes of identity, memory, ecology, embodiment, language, Indigenous cultures, alternative pedagogies, ecosomatic practices, and spatial relations through dance, storytelling, and ecological awareness. Babikyan has presented her research at local and international conferences, participated in artist residencies in countries including Italy, Hungary, Austria, the United States, and Portugal, and performed in numerous contemporary dance festivals both in Türkiye and internationally. Her practice supports the integration of embodied creativity into learning environments, fostering holistic education, authentic expression, and peaceful body-based relationships between individuals, their environments, and their inner creative selves.
