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Lucia Kašiarová
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Lucia Kašiarová (1981) as a performer, dancer, and pedagogue, she holds dance as a source of inspiration for one’s life. In her art, she cherishes improvisation and coincidence. After graduating from Ján Levoslav Bella Conservatory in Banská Bystrica, she studied modern dance pedagogy at the Music and Dance Faculty, Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, and then also at the Academy of Arts in Prague. In 2002, while still a student at the Academy of Performing Arts, her production The Three of Us – My Try won an award at the international festival Saitama Dance Contest in Tokyo, Japan. Kašiarová is one of the co-founders of the professional dance theatre company known as the Dance Studio in Banská Bystrica. She worked for the studio for four seasons.

Since 2005, she has been an independent artist and worked on devised projects as well as research about movement in art. She is the laureate of the Czech dance platform’s 2012 Dancer Award. She has run her own choreographic projects and cooperated with eminent Slovak, Czech, and international choreographers, including Zuzana Ďuricová Hájková, Petra Fornayová, Julyen Hamilton, Milli Bitterli, Paul Wenninger, Oleg Soulimenko, Jaro Viňarský, Tereza Ondrová, Viliam Dočolomanský, David Zambrano, Peter Šavel, Stano Dobák, Jozef Fruček, Csaba Molnár, Mirka Eliášová, Tina Mantel, Milan Kozánek, among others. She has also collaborated on interdisciplinary projects with such directors as Anna Hlaváčová, Štěpáno Pácl, Petra Tejnorová, Michal Vajdička, Braňo Holička, Vanda Hybnerová, Pavel Khek, and Peter Machajdík.

Since 2007, she has been the director of ALT@RT, and since 2008, of the creative space Studio ALTA in Prague. Under Kašiarová’s leadership, the studio established itself as a professional, open platform focused mostly on the presentation of contemporary art and dance, as well as multi-genre projects. Since 2017, Studio ALTA has been a member of the Trans Europe Halles association of cultural centres and has been involved in numerous Czech and international projects. Studio ALTA is also actively involved in the creation of cultural policies, provides a background for local communities of various types and interests, and acts as an artistic residency centre. In 2018, Kašiarová won the Jiří Opěla Award given by the Czech Dance Platform in the Manager of the Year category.

In 2009–2020, she was the director of the festival of Slovak contemporary dance in the Czech Republic known as HYBAJ HO! The festival’s aim is not only to present Slovak art in the Czech Republic, but also to initiate a vibrant Czecho-Slovak cultural exchange, foster broad collaboration in art and dance, and catalyze mutual interference and creative excitement. The festival’s The activities not only have an impact on the dance creative environment of both countries, but also significantly influence the perception of institutionalization and the creation of a sustainable infrastructure for Slovak contemporary dance. Studio ALTA and especially the festival of Slovak contemporary dance HYBAJ HO! have also become a venue for Czecho-Slovak co-production projects and productions by Slovak artists living and working in Prague. In 2007–2017, Lucia Kašiarová was the artistic director of the Kašpar’s Kolín Mimoriál festival, an event carrying the legacy of the Czech-born mime Jean Gaspard Deburau. It is a festival of non-verbal and movement theatre in the Kolín region. Kašiarová is also a member of various cultural and grant committees in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and is a member of the board of Dance Vision, a union organization of contemporary dance. At present, her greatest challenge is to find the differences and broader contexts in the management and creation of art programmes in both established as well as independent organizations.

Lucia Kašiarová’s art oscillates between provocative and socially engaged devised work, interdisciplinary management of the community discussion space, and a supportively confrontational style of dramaturgy of production projects.

In 2022-2025 she was the director of the Dance Studio Theatre in Banská Bystrica. She took over the position after the studio’s founder Zuzana Ďuricová Hájková. Notwithstanding the pitfalls of democracy applied in the theatre environment, she extended the operating concept by sharing competences and participation of the whole team in the vision, its realisation and implementation. Recently, she has been working simultaneously at Studio ALTA in Prague and at the Dance Studio Theatre in Banská Bystrica.