Natalia Draganik – born in 1976. Dancer and choreographer living in Poznań. She graduated from the ballet school in Łódź, then she studied piano at the Acadamy of Music in Kraków with Ewa Bukojewska. She won a scholarship of ProHelvetia Fondation (2003, Prague), Danceweb Scholarschip (2004, Vienna) and a scholarship of MobileAcademy (2007, Warsaw).
She was a president of the Association “Towarzysto Gimnastyczne”, she danced and produced choreography in every production of that group: Whatever you wish, Foreign language, Nothing. She also performed in a performance by Nigel Charnock entitled Happy.
In 2009 she created her first solo performance entitled Manifesto in which she used video technique to speak critically of economic situation of independent dancers in Poland. In a stylized regional TV programme she played a star dancer mouthing accumulated neoliberal platitudes about culture financing. Extensive video parts are interwoven with dance interludes in which stereotypes about role of dance in our culture have been transformed into parody – from a purely aesthetical ballet to a tv spectacle.
Natalia Draganik also worked as a choreographer in drama theatres, with Piotr Kruszczyński (Walizka, Polski Theatre in Poznań, 2009) and Paweł Szkotak (Eine kleine Nachtmusik, Horzyca Theatre in Toruń, 2009). Since 2001 she worked for promotion of contemporary dance as well, teaching promoters in the MDK No. 2 in Poznań.
She is currently working for the Grand Theatre – Opera in Poznań.
