Dancer, choreographer, director
Jana Burkiewiczová’s creative scope ranges from musicals to contemporary circus or cooperation with fashion design. In her independent projects she focuses on dance theatre for both adults and children; the visually outstanding productions often fuse contemporary dance and contemporary circus. She is inspired by problems of contemporary society and its course, including environmental issues.
Her dance journey began at Dance Centre Prague conservatory, with several foreign residencies (Broadway Dance Center and Steps on Broadway in New York, Artedanza Calabria in Italy). In 2009 she received the master’s degree in teaching at HAMU. She has designed choreographies for musicals (Quasimodo, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Urinetown, Mowgli), operas (Don Giovanni at the National Theatre) and feature fairy-tale (Kings’ Magic), she participated in presentation of Czech fashion at Expo 2011 in Shanghai, Design Day in India in 2011, the program of Czech Grand Design award, and others. The world of fashion and design visually inspires her independent projects as well.
In 2012 she designed choreography for the international project Lidoskop, the theatre cabaret merging contemporary dance and acrobatics (director: Martin Kukučka). One of the participants in the project was Petr Horníček, who founded his Losers Cirque Company in 2014. Jana Burkiewiczová created libretto and choreography for their project Walls and Handbags (2015) and she was also the director of the production. She received the Theatre Newspaper Award in dance and physical theatre in 2014/2015 for this piece. Thanks to the cooperation with Adéla Laštovková Stodolová and SKUTR directors, she drew closer to contemporary dance and physical theatre as she created choreography for the production Women (2013). The performance staged in the Comedy Theatre closely interconnected actor’s action and physical expression on the topic of womanhood and its stages in the contemporary world.
In 2015 Jana Burkiewiczová made another step toward her independence and founded Burki&com, staging independent productions as well as special one-time performances. The first premiere of her own company was The Wilds: The Vanity of Plumage (2015), the rich dance and theatre performance, dealing with parallels among society, nature and its laws. In 2017 she created the performance for children Find the Others produced by DOT504 and The Bear Who Floated on an Ice Floe, merging contemporary dance, physical theatre and acrobatics, with her own company in the same year. The next project by Jana Burkiewiczová and Burki&com was The Biggest Wish (2018), in which she deals with the topic of desire, finding good luck and motivations of human conduct in contemporary informational and consumer society.
Her most recent work is entitled Pink Samurai/The Story of Ferocious Wind (2020). This project about the dark shadows of heroes in modern world was created in collaboration with three hundred and four children from eleven schools across the country.
Her production successfully intersects with contemporary circus and the world of fashion and is closely associated with design and spectacular presentations. Waves she makes with her choreographic actions are getting more interesting and distinctive. (Jana Návratová, OperaPLUS, 2017)
Category
