dancer, choreographer, artistic director, pedagogue

Living and working in Brussels, Belgium, Ana Stegnar (1972, Ljubljana, Slovenia) started dancing at the Music and Ballet High School in Ljubljana as a student of Marija Ogrinec, Breda Kroflič and Živa Kreigher, all of whom have influenced her technique, movement aesthetic and artistic approaches. She trained extensively under recognised dancers and teachers at workshops and summer schools, organised across Slovenia in the end of the 1980s. Ana performed in the productions by the Dance Theatre Ljubljana, Mladinsko Theatre and Iztok Kovač. In 1992/93 she studied at CNDC l’Esquisse in Angers, France. In 1994 she started appearing in professional productions first in France and later in Belgium, working with Wim Wandekeybus and his Ultima Vez, where she also met her future husband Saïd Gharbi. After several performances created with Ultima Vez and extensive touring to renowned venues and festivals internationally, Ana decided to study at the  Centre d’Etudes Théâtrales, Université Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium, where she graduated in 2000 with the thesis on the development of physical actions from Stanislavski to Grotowski (French title Les Actions physiques au théâtre- L’évolution et le retour aux sources, Les Charnières charnelles). In 2003 she joined Les BGM (Les Ballets du Grand Miro) and started creating dance-theatre performances with Saïd Gharbi. Les BGM’s performances are aimed at the widest audience possible, to children and adults alike, and are created in close collaboration with artists of different disciplines, from dancers and actors to circus artists. Marie Baude described one of Les BGM’s performances in Le Soir as a “touching fusion of softness, humour and strangeness, full of imagination and reverberations”. Ana is also developing projects in close collaboration with professional dancers within the Les BGM, exploring stage presence, ritual and perception (productions Insaydout, Rituel révolutionnaire and La Musica).

Teaching since 1998 Ana regularly gives classes and workshops and has taught in many art institutions (Académie d’Anderlecht, Isac, Les humanités Danse) and private art schools (SaSaSa, Espace Catastrophe, Art-t…). She was also involved in the projects of Art à l’école in Belgium. In her pedagogical and mentoring work, she focuses on movement as an expression that encourages independent creativity, which she supports by increasing the body’s awareness and its relation to the environment. Ana seeks to make contemporary dance practices accessible to wider audiences through working with different people and in contact with different cultures, using dance as a means to foster interpersonal relations, mutual understanding and collaboration. Her practice is strongly influenced by instant composition technique, Body Weather and Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT). The focus of her artistic and pedagogical work is the inner, the hidden and how to express. She also often works with visually impaired dancers. Her latest piece Dancing Space explores the connections between the performing and pedagogical approaches to dance.

Ana Stegnar – FB /  SRT / Idocde

 

PERFORMANCES

COLLABORATIONS AS CHOREOGRAPHER AND ASSISTANT CHOREOGRAPHER

COLLABORATIONS AS DANCER

PEDAGOGICAL WORK

SELECTED PERFORMANCES IN MORE DETAIL