Michail Zubkov completed a ballet school in Perm, Russia in 1980, before graduating from the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw (2009) and completing a post-graduate programme in dance theory at the same university in 2013. He spent 22 years dancing professionally. Currently, he teaches classical dance and acts as choreographer for the Śląsk Song and Dance Ensemble (since 2002).
He began his career as a dancer in Nizhny Novgorod State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet (Russia). He then took up a post with the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Vilnius, which he left in 1992 joining the Kraków Opera Ballet. Over his career he danced in classical ballets (Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Giselle) and performed successfully in contemporary works. In the Vilnius period, he made his first attempts to create his own choreographies, collaborating with the Fajerleh Jewish Dance Ensemble. Drawing on the experience he gained with Fajerleh, he produced a choreography for the musical Fiddler on the Roof, later staged at the Kraków Opera (1993).
As a choreographer he has collaborated with renowned composers (Goran Bregović, Wojciech Kilar) and directors (Krzysztof Jasiński, Marek Weiss-Grzesiński). In 1995 he founded the ballet Oranim Dance Group. For Oranim he developed productions such as Jewish Wedding, Only Jokes, Letters of George Sand, My Chopiniana, Sarabanda, among other pieces. The Oranim Dance Group staged productions internationally, in 2000 being awarded at the Music World Festival in Fivizzano, Italy. In 2002 he showed his pieces in Paris. In 2001, Michail Zubkov together with Kinga Szabłowska won the second prize in Le Printemps de la Dance contest in Bordeaux, France. In 2005 he was a finalist of the 10th International Competition of Ballet Artists and Choreographers in Moscow. In 2012 he was a finalist of the 6th International Sergei Diaghilev Competition of Choreographic Art in Łódź.
In 2006 he founded the International Summer School of Contemporary Dance in Koszęcin and has been leading as artistic director since. Michail Zubkov collaborates as choreographer and teacher with several dance groups and schools in Poland and abroad (Germany, Italy, France, Lithuania and more). He runs classical and contemporary dance workshops across Europe.
