Mirna Zagar

Croatia – HIPP

Mirna Zagar has worked in dance for all of her 40 year professional career (dancer, choreographer, Company Director, dance teacher, community leader, writer, and including venue management). Her work has taken her across Europe, and into Canada. Her initial dance engagements started in Zagreb, Croatia, where she was Artistic Director of Zagreb Dance Company for 10 years and then founded Dance Week Festival, Croatia’s primary contemporary dance festival (www.danceweekfestival.com) which enters into its 37th edition in 2020.  She also founded the Croatian Institute for Movement and Dance (Hrvatski institut za pokret i ples, HIPP, www.danceincroatia.com), as a not for profit association dedicated to promoting contemporary dance practices in Croatia, establishing collaborative connections to the international world of dance. She is also the co-founder of the Moving Academy for Performing Arts in The Netherlands (mapa.nl) which continues for 25years now and under new artistic directorship  continues to connect  artists across Europe and into Asia. She has been involved in numerous EU projects both as project leader and partner. Mirna’s work has also been instrumental in the creation of the Zagreb Dance Centre directing the core programs and managed successfully by the HIPP team for 7 years (2009-2016) before the space reverted to the City of Zagreb to be managed by a repertory theatre.  Her accomplishments and work have taken her to Vancouver, Canada were she has been instrumental in the creation of Scotiabank Dance Centre (www.thedancecentre.ca), a unique facility for dance and where she established several core programming streams in support of dance practices and in areas of community engagement. The Dance Centre was one of the two Canadian partners in the initial rendition of Migrant Bodies and Mirna is pleased she has the honour to continue working on this theme in the new project configuration. Mirna has continuously fostered international relationships through dance to enrich experiences of dance artists as well as communities she engages with (she has co-organized two IETM meetings in Zagreb, and with HIPP is  currently a  member of the European DanceHouse Network). For 10 years she was also on the Artistic Council of the Rencontres Choregraphique International de Seine Saint Denis in France at a time it was a  place of encounters for artists from across the world.  Working in areas contributing towards inclusive societies is a passion that inspires and ignites her work to establish dance as a major contributor to a healthy society;  through the Croatian Institute for Movement and Dance as well as through the Dance Week Festival she has contributed to the rise of disabilities arts practices specifically in dance in Croatia. In addition to the study of contemporary dance she also studied Art History and English Literature at the University of Zagreb, Croatia.