Marta Pietruszka – dancer, choreographer, teacher working in Cracow.She started dancing in the 80’s in “Kontrast” Student Dance Theatre in Cracow. The artists like Iwona Olszowska and Katarzyna Skawińska worked in Kontrast at that time with Pietruszka. Pietruszka was also a member of an experimental theatre group Teatr 38, in Klub pod Jaszczurami at the time.
She was a co-founder (with Iwona Olszowska) of EST Experimental Dance Studio. In 1998 she founded (with Olga A. Marcinkiewicz) the Theatre of Gesture and Movement. She also collaborated regularly with the Mellissa Monteros and Wojciech Mochniej’s Gdańsk Dance Theatre; she worked with the Silesian Dance Theatre.
She is a lecturer at the State Drama School (PWST) in Cracow; since 1994 she has given classes in the Old Town Centre of Youth Culture in Kazimierz (Cracow). She was a teacher for a whole generation of Cracow dancers, both amateurs and those who became professionals. In 2007 she lectured contemporary dance technique at the Ballet School in Bytom.
In the Centre of Youth Culture she runs Contemporary Dance Stage – a series of presentations of both amateur and small professional projects.
She is the author of numerous choreographies, including solos (Infantka, Lady Makbet, Ja albo ja). Her solo performance Śmierci Ofelii (choreography co-created by her and O.A. Marcinkiewicz), inspired by an 18th century Bogusławski’s acting manual, has been successfully presented both in Poland and abroad for over 10 years. She also worked as a choreographer in drama theatres, in particular with the director Andrzej Sadowski (a member of Cracow’s group a&a&a), but also with Bogdan Hussakowski and Łukasz Czuj.
She was awarded a scholarship from Nord Rhine-Westphalia chorographical centre in Essen (2000) and from the Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2008).
