Urszula Bernat-Jałocha is a dancer, pedagogue, choreographer, director. She began her dance education at the Roman Turczynowicz Secondary Ballet School in Warsaw. After graduating in 2002, she joined the Opera in the Castle in Szczecin, next in 20062008 she was a dancer at the Stanisław Moniuszko Grand Theatre in Poznań. In 2007 she earned her M.F.A. in ballet pedagogy at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. In 2008/2009 she continued her studies at the Scottish School of Contemporary Dance where she earned her Bachelor of Arts. Then she took part in the Scottish Dance Theatre Apprentice Dancer Programme. As a student in Scotland, she collaborated with Janis Claxton, Thomas Small and Victoria Fox. Additionally, she has been improving her qualifications by taking part in workshops with Peeping Tom (Belgium), les ballets C de la B (Belgium), Johannes Wieland (Germany), Sjoerd Vreugdenhil (Norway), Akram Khan (UK), Hofesh Shechter (UK), Emio Greco PC (Italy/Holland), Noa Paran (Israel), Anna Nowak (Poland), Yoshifumi Inao (Japan), Janis Claxton (UK).
In 2009, she joined the Polish Dance Theatre. She featured in almost all dance pieces of the PDTs repertoire, choreographed, among others, by Ohad Naharin, Jo Strmgren, Jacek Przybyłowicz, Ewa Wycichowska, Iwona Pasińska. Together with PDT, she has performed at international festivals in Poland and abroad. In 2014, she took part in Sjoerd Vreugdenhils choreographic project entitled Unintended Consequences, created for the Malta Festival 2015 (production: Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk in cooperation with the Institute of Music and Dance within the framework of the Choreographic Commissions Programme). In the same year, she participated in the co-production of PDT and the German collective bodytalk, co-creating the performance Jewrope.
She made her choreographic debut in 2014 with Nondescript presented at the 7th Festival of the Atelier of the PDT. In 2015, she was granted the prestigious Young Poland Scholarship awarded to distinguished artists under the age of 35. Within the framework of the scholarship, she created the performance Perception.
Since 2018, she has been working as a freelancer. In the same year, she received the creative scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. As part of the scholarship, she created the performance Showreel. In 2020, she won the scholarship granted within the programme Culture Online of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and created the film 120 cm of Intimacy.
For many years, she has been working as a pedagogue at the International Contemporary Dance Workshops in Poznań and the Open Contemporary Dance Classes in Poznań. Additionally, for several years she also worked as a lecturer of classical and contemporary dance at the Eugeniusz Piasecki Academy of Physical Education in Poznań and at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw.
In July 2018, she participated in the DanceAbility Teacher Certification course and became a certified teacher of this technique. Her participation in the course was financed by the Institute of Music and Dance within the framework of the Supporting International Activity Programme.
