Krzysztof Pastor – director of the Polish National Ballet. Dancer, choreographer and producer. He graduated from the Ballet School in Gdańsk. He danced in the Conrad Drzewiecki’s Polish Dance Theatre. In 1979 he moved to the Grand Theatre in Łódź. In 1983 he became a soloist in Le Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon in France. In 1985–1995 he worked in Het Nationale Ballet. His artistic personality was significantly shaped by collaboration with Carolyn Carlson, Nils Christie, Rudi van Dantzig, Nacho Duato, Toer van Schayk, Peter Wright, and in particular with Hans van Manen. He created his first choreography in 1986 for International Ballet Gala in Łódź. After producing several ballets for Het Nationale Ballet workshop programmes, in 1992 he presented his own ballet Szostakowicz – Symfonia kameralna. From 1995 he worked as an independent choreographer.
In the season 1997/1998 he joined Washington Ballet and in the season 1998/1999 – Het Nationale Ballet. Since then he created more than 50 ballets. In 1995 he won the Gold Choreographic Award at the International Ballet Competition in Helsinki (a duo Detail IV). In 2000 he was awarded the Choreographic Award from the Dutch Dansersfonds ’79 Foundation.
In 2003 he was employed, as choreographer, by Het Nationale Ballet. He collaborated with the Scottish Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, the Washington Ballet, the Dresden Opera Ballet, the Israeli Ballet, the Royal Flemish Ballet, the Lithuanian National Ballet, the Latvian National Ballet, Donau Ballet, the State Ballet in Ankara, the Australian Ballet, the West Australian Ballet, and the New Zealand Ballet.
In 2009 he produced a ballet of Tristan with Richard Wagner’s music at the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera. After this event, he was offered by the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera the position of artistic director of the Warsaw ballet, to give the ballet more artistic independence and promote it to the rank of Polish National Ballet. In the following years Pastor produced in Warsaw such choreographies as: Kurt Weill, In Light and Shadow, And the Rains will come…
In 2009, he was appointed director of the Polish National Opera ballet company, where he has striven to ensure the company a greater degree of artistic independence and raise its rank to that of the Polish National Ballet.
At the same time, Pastor retained his position as resident choreographer at Amsterdam’s Het Nationale Ballet (until 2017). As the director of the Polish National Ballet, he has stage some of his prior pieces in Warsaw, including Kurt Weill (2009), In Light and Shadow (2010), Moving Rooms (2012), Romeo and Juliet (2014), The Tempest, and Bolero (2016), while also developing new choreographies, among others And the Rains Will Come… (2011), Adagio&Scherzo (2014), Casanova in Warsaw (2015), an original version of Swan Lake (2017), and an auteur rendition of Chopin’s Piano Concerto in F minor (2018).
Between 2011 and 2020, Pastor also served as the artistic director of the ballet company of the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Vilnius. While there, he choreographed his Tristan, as well as Romeo and Juliet, The Nutcracker, Bolero and The Miraculous Mandarin. In recognition of his contributions to the development of the Vilnius ballet company, he was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order “For Merits to Lithuania” and the Honorary Gold Star of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania.
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- 1995: Gold Choreography Award, Helsinki International Ballet Competition (Finland)
- 2000: Polish Ballet Bicentennial Medal, awarded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Poland
- 2000: Choreographic Prize, Dansersfonds’79 (Holland)
- 2002: Nomination for the international Benois de la Danse award (ballet Oscar) for the original ballet Kurt Weill
- 2010: Terpsichore Statuetted, awarded by the Association of Polish Actors
- 2011: Gold Medal “For Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis”
- 2014: Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Prize
- 2015: Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta
- 2016: ZAiKS prize for choreographic output
- 2016: Honorary Gold Star of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania
- 2017: “Outstanding Pole“ statuette and title, awarded by the Foundation of the Polish Promotional Emblem “Teraz Polska/Poland Now”
- 2019: Performing Arts Western Australian Award for Dracula in the best new dance piece category (2018)
- 2021: Officer’s Cross of the Order “For Merits to Lithuania”
In 2021, Krzysztof Pastor was appointed member of the Program Board of the National Institute of Music and Dance.
- 2011: And the Rains Will Come… (Polish National Ballet)
- 2012: Chapters (Het Nationale Ballet), Bolero (Het Nationale Ballet; also presented at the Lithuanian National Ballet, 2015; Latvian National Ballet, 2015; Polish National Ballet, 2016; Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, planned for 2023)
- 2014: Adagio&Scherzo (Polish National Ballet; also presented at the Theater Augsburg, 2016), The Tempest (Het Nationale Ballet; also presented at the Polish National Ballet, 2016), The Nutcracker (Lithuanian National Ballet), Casanova in Warsaw (Polish National Ballet)
- 2017: Swan Lake featuring a new libretto (Polish National Ballet)
- 2018: Dracula (West Australian Ballet; also presented at the Latvian National Ballet, 2021; Queensland Ballet, 2021, Polish National Ballet, 2022), The Miraculous Mandarin (Lithuanian National Ballet), 2018: Chopin’s Piano Concerto in F minor (Polish National Ballet), Moniuszko’s Polish Dances – Polonnaise and Mazurka (Polish National Ballet)
- 2019: Kilar’s Toccata (Polish National Ballet)
- 2021: Tristan and Isolde – pas de deux (Teatro alla Scala), Schönberg’s Transfigured Night (Lithuanian National Ballet)
