Natalie Kamajian is an MA/PhD student in Culture and Performance at UCLA. She is a practitioner and teacher of Armenian vernacular dances, which are largely understudied within the fields of both Dance and Armenian studies. Natalie’s research inquiries stem from an in-depth dance practice spanning across several years in Armenia. Her dissertation will constitute the first critical investigation and multilingual study of Armenian dance and its competing aesthetic expressions and socio-political framings. Her current research examines dominant staged expressions of “Armenian dance” as a stylized, ballet-centric dance form that represses Armenian vernacular aesthetics. She uses an interdisciplinary methodology combining ethnographic and archival research, as well as choreographic analysis and her own dance and teaching practice. Natalie’s scholarly work has been generously supported by the Graduate Research Mentorship Fellowship, the Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Fellowship, the School of Arts & Architecture Dean’s General Scholarship, the Polly Nooter Roberts Graduate Fellowship Fund, the Jean Irwin Dance Fund, the Mangasar M. Mangasarian Scholarship Fund and the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship Program.