Serouj Aprahamian

bio

Serouj “Midus” Aprahamian is Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He has been active in hip-hop dance since 1997, gaining notoriety under the name Midus for his unique, abstract style. In 2002, he helped produce a highly influential experimental dance video called Detours and, together with his group Style Elements Crew, has contributed to such cross-cutting concepts as threading, tracing, freeze framing, and mannequinism. He has taught, performed, and judged at leading hip-hop events throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Eurasia, and given workshops and presentations at universities throughout North America.

On the scholarly front, Aprahamian’s research has uncovered numerous myths surrounding hip-hop history and offered new information surrounding the beginnings of the culture. His first book project, The Birth of Breaking: Hip-Hop History from the Floor Up, is set to be published by Bloomsbury Press in the summer of 2023. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Black Studies, Dance Research Journal, Oxford African American Studies Center, and The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies. Aprahamian also serves on the Editorial Board of Dance Research Journal and as a member of PoP Moves, an international research group focusing on popular dance and performance. His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Toronto Arts Council, Province of Ontario, and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC).

Most recently, Aprahamian edited and posthumously published a collection of sketches and writings by the famed aerosol art and hip-hop pioneer PHASE 2. He is also co-editing a special issue on dance and protest for IASPM Journal, the peer-reviewed journal of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM). Aprahamian is regularly consulted for news reports on breaking and hip-hop history and continues to perform at community-based events throughout the world.

His current scholarly interests focus on the role of dance in hip-hop’s musical development, youth identity formation, cultural criminalization, and aesthetic institutionalization.