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Šárka Ondrišová
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Šárka Ondrišová (1971, České Budějovice) graduated from the Department of Dance Art of the Music and Dance Faculty, Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, where she majored in choreography and direction. In 2012, she completed her doctoral studies at the same department, where she now works as the principal pedagogue for the study of choreography and direction. During her career, Ondrišová created over seventy choreographies for theatres as well as her own, individual projects. She has collaborated and worked for all theatre scenes in Bratislava, having created dozens of choreographies for musicals, operas, and big TV shows.

In the past, she worked as a dancer in the Auriga modern dance company, the Army Artistic Ensemble in Bratislava, the New Stage Theatre, the LST Bautzen company in Germany, among others. Between 1997 and 1999, she was the artistic director and choreographer of the professional dance group Cabaret.

In 2007, she founded the elledanse theatre and dance school, which she led with much success until 2018 as its artistic director and choreographer. In addition to the Dance Studio Theatre in Banská Bystrica, elledanse became a unique permanent contemporary dance scene in Slovakia presenting the work of many dance and theatre ensembles. In June 2015, the elledanse theatre could not keep its building for financial reasons and ceased all activities in 2018. However, the elledanse dance school has continued its activities until today. As part of the elledanse theatre, Ondrišová established the elledanse Company, which she also artistically and pedagogically directed and managed. The company aimed to present contemporary Slovak dance and original devised work in Slovakia and internationally – it has presented more than twenty guest performances in theatres and at festivals all over Europe. In 2014, for example, Slovak contemporary dance and theatre participated, for the very first time, in the largest European festival and fair in Düsseldorf, where elledanse productions were performed. Similarly, in 2015 it took part in the Asian platform in Yokohama, Japan. For several seasons, Šárka Ondrišová closely collaborated with Miroslava Kovářová to prepare and organize the festival known as Bratislava in Movement.

In 2009–2013, Ondrišová initiated and led the project Returning to Dance – an educational scheme for professional dancers and students of dance. Ondrišová won several awards, including the 2003 Literary Fund Award for the Hair musical (2003), the DOSKY Award for best direction of the season for Canto Hondo, another DOSKY Award for best production of the season also for Canto Hondo (2008), Literary Fund Award for Canto Hondo (2008), the Minister of Culture award (2009). She was also nominated for the DOSKY Award in the discovery of the season category for A Tribute to Cows (2010) and Slovak Woman of the Year (2016), among others.

She is very actively involved in yoga – she has attended and participated in numerous yoga seminars in Slovakia and abroad (India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bali).

Ondrišová is also an outstanding pedagogue – she has mainly taught jazz and modern dance and choreography, both in Slovakia and abroad. Besides the systematic advancement of the performative qualities of the members of the elledanse Company, and the improvement of the artistic and technical competencies of the students of the elledanse dancing school, Ondrišová educated and trained a great number of successful dancers in Slovak ensembles – the White Theatre, Alfa, Auriga, State Conservatory on Tolstoy street in Bratislava, or the Alkana Private Musical High School. In 2015, she taught at the LCDC dance school in Okayama, Japan. Since 2016, she has been working at the Department of Dance Art of the Faculty of Music and Dance, Academy of Performing Arts, as a teacher of choreography and direction. She also works at the Department of Acting at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava.