Robert Bondara is a Polish dancer, choreographer, director, teacher and former long-time dancer with the Polish National Ballet. In 2018, he was appointed Director of the Poznań Opera House Ballet.
Bondara is a graduate of the Feliks Parnell State Ballet School in Łódź, the Warsaw School of Economics, and the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, where he worked as a lecturer from 2007 through 2018. He began his dancing career performing with the Music Theatre in Łódź and later moved to the Poznan Opera House Ballet. In 2005, he joined the Polish National Ballet where he performed in choreographies by Jiří Kylián, John Cranko, Krzysztof Pastor, Emanuel Gat, William Forsythe, John Neumeier, Alexei Ratmansky, and Frederick Ashton, among others.
Bondara received the 2nd prize (no 1st prize was awarded) and the special prize of the Witold Lutosławski Society at the Bronislava Nijinska National Choreography Competition in Warsaw (2008) and the Jan Kiepura Award in the “Best Choreographer” category in 2011. He also participated in the 27th and 29th editions of the International Competition for Choreographers in Hannover in 2013 and 2015. More recently, he won the “Le Prix de Biarritz” award in the Emergent Choreographers Contest in Bordeaux in 2018. That same year, he received the Jan Kiepura Award in three categories: “Best Choreographer” for Świtezianka with the Polish National Ballet, and “Best Director” and “Best Performance” for his first opera The Baltic Legend with the Poznań Opera House. He is also a recipient of the Bronze Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis.
Bondara participated in the Polish National Ballet’s Choreographic Workshops, choreographing several ballets that were subsequently featured in the chamber repertoire of the company. As a guest choreographer, he has staged works in Poland an abroad, including the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Vilnius, Chemnitz Ballet (Germany), Company E in Washington (USA), Kielce Dance Theater (Poland), Opera Nova Ballet in Bydgoszcz (Poland), Wrocław Opera House Ballet (Poland), Poznan Opera House Ballet (Poland), Silesian Opera House in Bytom (Poland), Moving Arts in Kansas City (USA), Czech National Ballet and Polish National Ballet.
His choreographies have been presented around the globe, including the 43rd International Dance Festival in Kuopio, Finland, Polish Dance Competition in Gdańsk, Didura Festival in Sanok, Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre, Dance Salad Festival in Houston, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, Dancing Poznan – XIII International Dance Theatres Festival, Roberto Bolle and Friends Galas throughout Italy, Xinjiang International Dance Festival in China, STS Festival in Warsaw, Days of Dance Festival at the Polish National Opera (2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th edition), and at galas and festivals in Poland, Latvia, Slovakia, Hungary, Norway, China, Czech Republic, and Japan.
