Employees

dr hab.

Beata Książkiewicz

prof. UMFC

dance

Fot. Robert Frąckowiak

A teacher, choreographer and lecturer at the FCUM. In1977, she graduated from the State Ballet School, obtaining a dancer’s diploma and she took up studies at the Theatre Arts Institute in Moscow, Department of Ballet Pedagogy and Choreography, where she was taught by outstanding professors – Raisa Struchkova, Tamara Turchina and Tamara Tkachenko. She graduated with honours in 1981 and in the same year she started working at the State Ballet School in Poznań where she taught classical, characteristic and historical dance and music and movement interpretation until 1997.

In the period of 1983–1986, she was a doctoral student at the Theatre Arts Institute in Moscow. She defended her doctoral thesis in 1988. In 1996 she started working as a lecturer at the Fryderyk Chopin Academy (now University) of Music in Warsaw, teaching students majoring in Dance, specialty Ballet Pedagogy, and at that institution she obtained her post-doctoral (2010) degree and then became Associate Professor (2012).

At the FCUM, she teaches historical dance, historical dance methodics, characteristic dance, characteristic dance methodics and artistic dance with didactics – early school stage. She is an author of curricula for these subjects.

Working as a teacher, she makes her best effort to constantly improve her knowledge in the field, participating in numerous dance courses in Poland and abroad in classical dance, characteristic dance (flamenco, Indian, Hungarian and Russian dances), historical dance, afro, jazz, and modern dances. She attends flamenco classes given by such teachers as: Pilar Martinez, Jose de Udaeta, Imma Lopez, or Elias Morales.

To bring her long-time dreams into life, she founded The “Fouetté” School of Dance and Ballet in Poznań, which was opened on 10 November 1997. The school is a kind of a laboratory in which new teaching methods can be implemented on the basis of one’s experiences.

Aside of her didactic activity, as Head of the school she develops cooperation with ballet schools in Denmark, Germany, Spain, USA, Russia, Mexico, Peru, Japan, Hungary, Italy and France, organising performances and artistic exchanges of teachers and students.

She has collaborated for years with the “Kalinka” Ballet School in Santa Cruz, Tenerife, Spain, providing methodological supervision. She sits on the jury of the International “Golden Pointe Shoes” Ballet Competition and All-Poland Ballet Competition in Szczecin, which awards the title of “The Best Graduate from Ballet Schools in Europe and Poland”. She has taught children and youth and conducted training courses in many countries, e.g. Denmark, Germany, Spain, USA, Italy and France.

Since 2003, she has been a member of UNESCO’s International Dance Council, which unites world’s most outstanding dance and ballet specialists.

 She is an originator and co-organiser of the International Young Dancers’ Festival; the event is organised each year in a different country and its first edition was held in Denmark in 2004. The festival is accompanied by the International Symposium on the promotion of dance among children and youth and it unites numerous ballet schools from all over the world.

She has also prepared choreography for numerous ballet performances, e.g. Porcelain Figurines, music by G. Bizet, Slavonic Circle, music by Jorgi Quartet, full-size ballet performance versions of: Cinderella, music by S. Prokofiev, The Nutcracker, music by P. Tchaikovsky, The Ugly Duckling, music by F. Schubert, and also Polish Kaleidoscope, music collage: Chopin, Moniuszko, Tolhaje, Marek and Wacek, Jorgi Quartet, The Turnip, muic by E. Grieg, Midsummer Night, music by F. Chopin, Maria Pomianowska Polish Ensemble, On the 19th Century Park Promenade, music by Karol Kurpiński, and countless choreographic miniatures. She prepared choreography and directed the grand stage performance entitled The Poznań Tales (music by Waldemar Rychły and Friends), which was extremely popular in the Greater Poland region.

She is an author of numerous curricula, ballet librettos, and a book entitled Spektakl baletowy dla dzieci – proces twórczy [Ballet Performance for Children – a Creative Process] published by Wydawnictwo Historia i Sztuka (Poznań 2009).