Join us for the Feminist Armenian Research Collective’s (FemARC) Third Workshop, New Directions in Music, Arts, and Performance Studies, which will be held at UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music’s Schoenberg Music Building on May 26–27, 2026. See the workshop webpage and details here!
On May 26th, panels will run all day in the Green Room (Room 1230) from 9:30 am to 6:00 pm, followed by an album-launch concert “Piano Works of Koharik Gazarossian” by Nare Karoyan at Schoenberg Hall.
The workshop's concluding discussion session will take place on May 27th (10:00-11:30 am) in the Green Room (Room 1230).
Conference Program
Feminist Armenian Research Collective (FemARC) – Third Workshop
New Directions in Music, Arts, and Performance Studies
May 26–27, 2026, UCLA
Convened by Melissa Bilal (UCLA) and Lerna Ekmekcioglu (MIT)
Tuesday, May 26, 2026, UCLA Schoenberg Music Building, Green Room (Room 1230)
Welcoming Remarks
Melissa Bilal & Lerna Ekmekcioglu
9:30–10:00 am
Panel 1: Archival Interventions: Connecting the Curatorial and the Performative
10:00 am–11:30 am
Chair: Melissa Bilal
Arpine Haroyan, “Between Archive and Praxis: Feminist Engagement with Margarit
Babayan’s Legacy”
Chantal Partamian, “What Remains: Queer Hauntings and the Feminist Politics of
Archival Return (projects Haralez and Traces)”
Ayda Manukyan, “Alis Manukyan is Alive: Her Life and Legacy”
Sevan Injejikian, “12 Faces of Armenian Feminism: Curating Resistance, Recovery, and Care in and through Archives”
Panel 2: Feminist Pasts and Futures: A Reading through the Arts
11:30–1:00 pm
Chair: Melissa Bilal
Talinn Grigor, “Femininity-as-Feminism: Armenian Interventions in Iran’s Avant-garde Art and Architecture”
Linda Ganjian, “3D Carpets and Collages: Memory as Metropolis”
Tsovinar Kuiumchian, “The Politics of Proprioception in Hera Büyüktaşcıyan's Site-
Responsive Art”
Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, “Բաժակ Նայող / One Who Looks at the Cup: Data
Feminisms and Algorithmic Counter-Divination”
Lunch Break
1:00–2:00 pm
Panel 3: Intersections of Music, Dance, and Gender Studies
2:00–4:00 pm
Chair: Zoe Sherinian
Natalie Kamajian, “Choreographing Gender Difference in Armenian Concert Dance: From the Republic to the Diaspora”
Sophia Armen, “Breaking the Halay Chain: Gender, Ethnicity, and Indigenous Preservation at Armenian-American Kef Time Performances”
Anoush Tamar Suni, “Seda Suny: Armenian American Dance Pioneer”
Sylvia Alajaji and Lara Sarkissian, “Hearing Our Selves: On the Sound Worlds of Lara Sarkissian and Armen Ra”
Panel 4: Writing Armenian Women’s History on the Stage
4:00–5:30 pm
Chair: Lerna Ekmekcioglu
Cassandra Tavukciyan, “Performing Majoritarianism in a Minor Key: Armenian Women Performers in the Construction of Post-1923 Turkey”
Houri Berberian, “Irano-Armenian Theater, Women's Organizations, and Transimperial Connections”
Marie-Aude Baronian, “Performing Aurora on Stage: Prosthetic Media and Bodies in Arsinée Khanjian’s Auction of Souls”
Melissa Bilal, “Feminist Prosopographical Recovery of Koharik Gazarossian’s Life Story and Music”
Coffee Break
5:30-6:00 pm
Album-launch concert: Piano Works of Koharik Gazarossian
6:00–7:00 pm, Schoenberg Hall
Nare Karoyan, piano
Wednesday, May 27, 2026
UCLA Schoenberg Music Building Green Room (1230)
Concluding Discussion
10:00 am–11:30 am