Štúdio Tanca dance theatre in Banská Bystrica was founded in 1998 under the guidance of Mgr. Zuzana Ďuricová Hájková and this year celebrated the impressive 20th anniversary. During all this time it has offered the audience courage, authenticity, recency and professionalism, which is the primary goal of the theatre.
By its uniqueness of artistic focus theatre pioneers author production, with maximum support for artists and their creative expression and opinion. In this sense it is truly unique and in a wide area we would have been looking in vain for a similar institution that focuses exclusively on contemporary dance and contemporary art.
It continually supports the creation and regular performing of original dance production. Within this mission, it has premiered more than 51 performances (5 of them for children) and many outdoor dance and educational projects so far.
Beside its focus, it is also unique in bringing current trends to Slovak theatre production and reflecting on the socio-political problems of today. As the founder of the theatre is the Banská Bystrica Self-governing Region, theatre was very personally affected by the situation in the period between 2014 and 2017, when the region was headed by members of the People’s Party Our Slovakia, who began to disregard the need of contemporary art. The situation was so serious that the theatre was in danger of extinction, which would mean a hit below the belt not only for talented artists who have worked with the theatre for many years, but also for citizens and visitors from all over the region. Fortunately, the situation in the region has stabilized and the theatre can still do what it was designed for – to offer its audiences a quality artistic experience, swirl emotions and share enthusiasm for contemporary art.
Štúdio Tanca dance theatre has performed 1300 performances, more than 300 of them as guest performances on different stages in Slovakia and abroad, with an audience of over 116 000 people.
Dance theatre regularly performs its production on several domestic stages and had represented Slovakia at prestigious international festivals in Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Germany, Italy, Belgium, France, Egypt, Switzerland, Japan and India. Due to its characteristic artistic attributes the theatre has been awarded many times, inter alia the theatre is the prize-winner of Mayor of Banská Bystrica Award and Minister of Culture of Slovak republic Award.