Jana Hanušová

Biography

Jana Hanušová studied dance training at the Prague Academy of Music. As a dancer, she worked with a number of Prague theatres, including most notably, from 1974–1989, the National Theatre (drama, ballet and opera companies), plus an engagement with the Czechoslovak Television Ballet Company, and various dance parts in films (among others, in Miloš Forman´s Amadeus). She attended, as an assistant to Professor František Bonuš, international festivals in Denmark, England, France and the USA. Since 1999 she has concentrated on choreography, working chiefly for drama, operetta and musical productions, with Prague´s Karlín Musical Theatre, Theatre ABC, Theatre Na Vinohradech, Theatre Pod Palmovkou, Theatre v Dlouhé, Theatre Na zábradlí, or Theatre Na Fidlovačce, with J.K. Tyl Theatre in Plzeň, and others. Her choreographies are sought after by television and film companies, as well as by promotional agencies. She works with leading stage and film directors, including Hana Burešová, Petr Kracik, Milan Schejbal, Otto Ševčík, Jiří Menzel, Petr Svojtka and Miroslav Hanuš. In her current collaboration on Ondřej Havelka´s production of La bohème at the Prague State Opera, she is linking up with their joint projects: the musical My Fair Josephine (Martin Vačkář, after Vladislav Vančura´s play, at the Karlín Musical Theatre, 1993), and the operas, The Bartered Bride by Bedřich Smetana (2006), and a double bill of Puccini´s one-acter Gianni Schicchi with Leoncavallo´s I pagliacci (National Theatre in Brno, 2008). She is a co-founder of the original dance theatre, Veselé skoky. Along with her artistic career, she was in 1985-2023 teaching dance, tap dance and stage movement at the Drama Faculty of Prague´s Academy of Performing Arts.

Photo:  Jaroslav Jiřička