Urbański, Karol

Dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Since September 2012 he is the director of the Castle Opera Ballet in Szczecin. He graduated from the State Ballet School in Łódź and the Faculty of Philosophy of the Warsaw University. Early in his career, he initiated a cooperation with the Grand Theatre in Łódź, where he worked for nine years as dancer and soloist, with a two-year hiatus when he completed his military service in the Central Artistic Ensemble of the Polish Army. From 1991, he has cooperated with the ballet of the Grand Theatre – National Opera in Warsaw. In 1995–97, he also danced at the Norwegian National Ballet, in choreographies by Mats Ek, Birgit Cullberg, Krzysztof Pastor, and Emil Wesołowski. In 1997, he returned to the National Opera in Warsaw, where he worked until 2010. He has taught at the ballet schools of Łódź and Warsaw. Currently, he works as classical and modern dance teacher for professionals and amateurs in Poland and abroad, running workshops and projects. In 2007, with Zbigniew Czapski he founded the Modern Dance Centre Foundation. In 2008, he was an intern at The Place in London. He was one of the coordinators of the 1st Dance Congress in Kielce. In 2020–12 he was a specialist for professional reorientation of dancers at the Grand Theatre – National Opera. As a choreographer, he has authored shows notably at the Grand Theatre – National Opera (Creations, Requiem for Hollow People), the Kielce Dance Theatre, and Opera Nova in Bydgoszcz (A Midsummer’s Night Dream).