"Nina Vangeli’s work focuses primarily on contemporary dance, alternative dance and theatre, but she also has a keen interest in experimentation and a desire to explore the possibilities of theatrical expression and the phenomenon of performance. Major inspirations on her work include Jungian philosophy and recent developments in theatrical anthropology.
She studied theatre at the Arts Faculty of Charles University at a time when the so-called “third wave” of theatre was in the ascendant, a non-conformist current of artistic thought with an emphasis on movement.
Her company, the Theatre of Movement Studio, was a fixture of the underground artistic landscape of the 1970s and 1980s, based at the Branik mime theatre.
Her first original piece was the experimental production Na Leara (1974), taking as its theme the ritual cruelty found in children’s theatre. This project was a collective endeavour bringing together theatre students with non-professional actors in collaboration with the Kruh group. It won the main prize at the Šrámek Písek awards.
She subsequently co-directed a serious of productions with V. Martinec, until the group’s activities were outlawed by the Czech authorities in 1976.
In her explorations of movement, Nina Vangeli has collaborated with Slovakian director Roman Polák. As a choreographer she has worked with Petr Zuska and Simone Sandroni.
Since its creation, she has been a contributor to Czech magazine Svět a divadlo (World and Theatre), where she writes on dance and theatre of movement. She has written on similar themes for a variety of theatrical and cultural magazines, as well as newspapers.
From 2000 to 2004 she served as editor in chief of contemporary dance magazine Dance Zone.
In 2003 she received the Next Wave festival award for journalistic achievement of the year.
She has also contributed to feminist publication One Woman Press."
