Maria Kolegova started her dance career in a ballet school at the age of five and continued her education as a contemporary dancer in a school of contemporary dance with support of the Centre of Contemporary Art in Yekaterinburg (Russian Federation). While studying, she discovered many techniques including martial arts and folk dance. In 2004 she performed a solo made by L. Aleksandrova at a competition of contemporary dance in Seoul (South Korea) and became a golden medalist. After her graduation from the Theatrical Academy in 2006, she was part of Chamber Ballet Moscow (Russia).
Artistically, she is working with the choreographer, filmmaker and photographer Wim Vandekeybus and is a member of his company Ultima Vez since 2012. She has offered an extensive number of pedagogical activities across Europe by sharing her experience and developing training programmes through movement and theatre. Since 2017 she teaches at the Royal Conservatorium of Antwerpen. Since 2022 she teaches and creates at the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD), collaborating as a guest teacher at the Institut del Teatre of Barcelona, as a teacher at the workshop programme at the SHARE Intensive in Berlin (Germany). In 2021 she created the piece for Sub.Lab.Pro project in Budapest (Hungary).
Maria, also known as Masha, has been learning and training the skills she acquired while studying to become an actor – Mikhail Chekhov technique. One of her main goals in her work as an actor is connected to the body, imagination, fantasy and thoughts. With the technical dance knowledge, she gained in classical ballet and in contemporary dance she started to work with completely different intentions. She places great importance on finding meaning in action, to generate a narrative through physicality and turning emotions inside out. She has discovered physical action not only as form, but seeks its limits and possibilities by going further than ‘simple’ physical modalities.
10.04.2022
