Anna Grabka – an outstanding dancer. She was born in Szczecin. She graduated from the Ballet School in Warsaw (1980). In 1973, as a student, she played at the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw the leading part of the small Klara in the Nutcracker. After graduating she was engaged by Maria Krzyszkowska to the Teatr Wielki’s ballet group. In 1982 she became a soloist and in 1985 a first soloist. She won 2nd prize of the 4th National Dance and Choreography Competition in Gdańsk (1984). In 1984 she got a degree of the Higher Extension Master Programme Studio for Dance Teachers of the University of Music in Warsaw. She performed such classical parts as: Swanilda in Coppelia (chor. Asaf Messerer), Aurora and Princess Florina in The Sleeping Beauty (chor. Pyotr Gusev), Lise in La fille mal gardee (chor. Frederick Ashton), Odette-Odile in Swan Lake (chor. Marius Petipa), title part and pas de deux in Giselle by Corally and Perrot and solo parts in La Ventana (chor. Bournonville),Serenade(chor. Balanchine) andSuite en blanc(chor. Lifar).
In 1985 she joined the company of John Neumeier in Hamburg, where she was a first soloist from 1987 to 2001. Neumeier created especially for her a part of Aase in Peer Gynt and solo parts in Shall We Dance, The Fifth Symphony of Gustav Mahler, Windows on MozartandRequiem. She performed the following parts in the ballets choreographed by Neumeier: Odette in Illusions – like Swan Lake, title part in The Lady of the Camellias, Aurora and Princess Florina in The Sleeping Beauty, Hippolyta/Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The young girl in Firebird, Rosalind and Celia in As you like it, The Stepmother in A Cinderella Story, Brangane in Tristan, Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, Diana in Sylvia, Eleonora Bereda in Nijinsky, Berthe in Giselle, and solo part in: Bach Suite-3, Shall we dance, Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler, Fourth Symphony of Gustav Mahler, Saint Matthew Passion, Now and Then, In The Between, Désir, Bernstein Dances. She also performed in ballets of other choreographers: Johna Cranko, Matsa Eka, José Limón, Leonid Jacobson (George Balanchine), William Forsythe, Anthony Tudor. Since 1997 she has worked as a Ballet Mistress in the following ballet companies: Dance Company Thos in Kiel and Hanover, Bavarian Ballet in Munich and English National Ballet in London. She has also worked with Hamburg Ballet and taught at its ballet studio. Her dance was marked by lightness, precision as well as clarity and purity of body lines.
