About Lerna
After graduating from Marmara University, Faculty of Education, Department of Adult Education with Pedagogical Formation in 2001, Lerna Babikyan continued her education at Yıldız Technical University, Department of Dance and graduated as the first in her department. She completed her master’s degree at the Movement, Mind, Ecology program at Dartington College of Arts in partnership with Plymouth University and Schumacher Collage.
In 1997, she started her dance teaching career in Istanbul and has been teaching creative dance, improvisation, dance composition, creative dance pedagogy, creative dance pedagogy and instructor training for more than 25 years to different age groups from preschool to university level in various education and development areas in Turkey and abroad.
In 2004, she created the “Conceptual Dance Education” program for preschoolers, in 2008 she made a presentation on “Teaching Biology Lessons through Creative Dance” at a democratic education conference in Germany, in the same years she took part in the Alternative Education Association and wrote articles on the subject and in 2015 she started to conduct Turkey’s first “Creative Dance Trainer Training” workshop in line with the philosophy of alternative education approaches.
In 1997, she started working as a theater actress under the direction of Misak Toros in Istanbul, and after working as an assistant director in the same theater for a while, she took part in projects such as TV commercials, experimental video performances and dance films in front of the camera.
Since 2001, she has participated in many local and international festivals as a dancer and choreographer, and has also worked as a choreographer in multidisciplinary improvisational performances, various theater plays and on-camera productions.
She has been accepted to artist residency programs in Italy, Austria, USA, Hungary and Portugal.
Between 2016-2018 she lived in Berlin where she continued her dance, teaching and choreography work.
DANCER, TRAINEE, WRITER
In 2018, during her master’s studies in the field of contemporary dance in Istanbul, she conducted the research titled “The Effects of Creative Dance on Physical Activity, Creativity, Metacognitive Awareness on 10-Year-Old Children”, and in 2019 “Increasing Awareness and Creativity with Body-Focused Movement Education”, however she faced with academic censorship and discrimination. Afterwards on 2020, she started writing her first book “Creative Dance-Moving Pedagogy” which was published in 2022. In 2023, she completed her master’s thesis “Experiencing the Armenian Language through Ecosomatic, Interdisciplinary Performativities” in the UK, which was based on practice and culminated in a participatory performance.
In line with today’s needs at ethical, educational, aesthetic and ecological levels, she continues to design and implement body and creative dance-oriented trainings for different professional groups such as children, adults, teachers, physical therapists with a focus on creative dance pedagogy for the development of individuals to empower body-aware, holistically sensitive to life, lifelong learners, creative, self-confident and with a high sense of belonging.
She has recently continued her research on ecology, learning with the body, somatic practices and cultural learning connectivity in the UK. She is also a Torrance Creativity Test Practitioner with Pedagogical Formation and a certified Braindance instructor.
In addition to all these, she continues to take part in interdisciplinary performances as a dancer and choreographer.
She has been a student and then an instructor at Çatı Contemporary Dance Artists Association, which has contributed to her professional development from past to present; she has also participated in master classes on contemporary dance techniques, ballet, composition, improvisation, butho and somatic awareness in and beyond Europe. Some of the instructors who inspired her are Anne Green Gilbert, Berrak Yedek, Billie Hanne, Eric Kaile, Gaby Angis, Geyvan McMillan, Loretta Livingstone, Mathew Hopkins, Juan Kruz Diaz Esnaola, Tetsuro Fukuhara, Keith Hannesy, Mustafa Kaplan, Oktay Keresteci, Zeynep Tanbay, Faustin Linyekula Ngoy, Uğur Seyrek, Suprapto Suryodarmo, Susan Bauer and Dr. Rachel Sweeney.
