cv pona

Olga Pona (*1959, Novotroisk in the southern Urals) first took up dancing at the age of twenty-one. Now she is one of the leading choreographers from the first generation of the contemporary Russian scene. She initially studied to be a motor and tractor mechanic and then took lessons in folk dance and ballet at the Chelyabinsk Institute for Culture from 1980-85. She also attended advanced courses and workshops in Jekaterinburg (which, like Chelyabinsk is a centre for new Russian dance), Novosibirsk and Moscow, which brought here into contact with contemporary western dance. In 1992, Olga Pona and Vladimir Pona founded the Chelyabinsk Theatre of Contemporary Dance. She has meanwhile staged eleven full-length and countless small (5 - 10 minutes) choreographies with the company. Olga Pona’s works have been shown at numerous Eastern European Festivals and are increasingly in demand in Western Europe too. In 2001 and 2003 she received the most highly regarded Russian theatre prize, the Golden Mask for the best contemporary choreography.