The purpose of this study is to examine specific features of the traditional Kazakh dances as the methodological foundation of training specialists in the culture and art universities. The article describes the main typologies of Kazakh dances, such as ritual and ceremonial, combative-hunting, work dances, household-imitative dances, festive and ceremonial dances, mass-thematic dances. National dance performs cultural, historical, aesthetic and semantic functions. Relevance of this problem is determined by the fact that in the present globalized world, national culture and traditions are oppressed by the multicultural environment; consequently, there is a need to train high-quality specialists in the field of cultural studies, who will be able to teach national culture. The authors used structural-functional, institutional and phenomenological approaches as well as methods of typological, historical, logical analysis. Research results show theoretical ways to address this problem. These include improvement of teaching and learning technologies, introduction of uniform terminological apparatus of the Kazakh dance, as well as various proven and advanced training technologies, in-depth study of the national dance, traditional culture, and heritage of the Kazakh dance art. This work can be used as a theoretical basis to develop the methodology of training future specialists in the field of cultural studies.