Renata Smukała is a former dancer, educator, assistant to choreographers, and ballet mistress of the Polish National Ballet. She graduated from the Ballet School in Warsaw. In 1966 she joined the ballet of the Teatr Wielki, in 1970 becoming a soloist and in 1975 a first soloist. In 197277 she also danced with the Warsaw-based Jeunesses Musicales company, touring France four times in an row. In 1973 she won the first prize in the performer category at the 1st Polish National Choreography Competition in Łódź. In 1977 she participated in a modern dance course led in Warsaw by Yuriko from Martha Grahams Dance Company in New York. In 1983 she gave guest performances as Odette-Odile in Swan Lake choreographed by Nicholas Beriozoff during the European tour of the Ballet Classique de Paris. She is a recipient of a Silver Cross of Merit (1979) and a Knights Cross of the Polonia Restituta Order (1986). In 1988 she retired from dancing and focused in teaching. She was an assistant to many choreographers until mid-2006, handling rehearsals and coaching soloists. After a two-year break, she resumed these duties in November 2008, and has been a ballet mistress of the Polish National Ballet since 29 April 2009.
Main roles: Lise in La fille mal gardée, Giselle, Sylphide, Mademoiselle Grisi, Odette-Odile (in three different productions of Swan Lake), Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, Francesca da Rimini, Aegina in Spartacus, The Girl in The Miraculous Mandarin, Miss Julie in the ballet by Birgit Cullberg, Carmen, soloist in Serenade, La Sylphide in the ballet by Bournonville, and leading role in Hans van Manens Twilight. She danced solo parts in ballets choreographed by Mikhail Fokine, Serge Lifar, George Balanchine, Frederick Ashton, Birgit Cullberg, Alexei Tchitchinadze, Joseph Lazzini, Erich Walter and John Butler, John Neumeier, Alberto Méndez, and Hans van Manen, Witold Gruca, Marta Bochenek, Jerzy Makarowski, Jerzy Graczyk, and Zofia Rudnicka.
