About Our School
Ján Nemec founded this ballet school in 1992, when he was still an active dancer—a soloist at the Czech National Ballet in Prague. Towards the end of his active dance career, he began thinking about how he could put his experience to good use, and he had the idea of founding a ballet school for children. In 1997 he concluded his his career as an active dancer, and since this time, he has focused solely on educating new, young dancers.
The core idea behind the school is not to train professional dancers, but rather to awaken and deepen pupils’ interest in the art of dance and the perception of music connected with it and to develop their motor skills, coordination of movement and overall musical sense. Master Ján Nemec prioritizes “family-style” education, with a single location and an individual approach. He tries to infuse his pupils with all of his professional experience and a love of and positive relationship towards classical dance, while respecting each pupil’s individuality.
Classical dance is the professional foundation for most dance styles, and thus it should also be a part of newly created modern dances. Our lessons teach the foundations of classical dance, including ballet terminology, from individual hand leg and arm positions up to entire routines and variations. This teaching method is a prerequisite for being able to study entire performances with the students using their own choreography.
In 1996, the school gave its first public ballet performance—the start of a long tradition. Every year the school presents its work over the past twelve months at Christmas performances. The school has presented itself through its ballet adaptations at a wide variety of Prague venues, from the The New Stage of the National Theater to the theater in Horní Počernice, e.g. Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Nutcracker, The Adventures of Little Onion, Swan Lake, The Frog Prince, Paquita, O Krejčíkovi, Giselle, Don Quixote, The Animals and the Brigands, and more.
Besides basic education, the school also systematically prepares students for both school performances and national and international amateur competitions—at which its students are top-ranked.
Besides basic ballet education, the school also offers individual lessons, which are very important for individuals’ artistic and motoric development. At our ballet seminars, students can try out exercises with other dance masters besides Mr. Nemec, leading to more comprehensive improvement of their self-expression in dance. The ballet school also organizes a summer school of dance for both its pupils and the public. It also provides pupils the opportunity to attend performances at the National Theater.
“Despite widespread opinions that classical dance is a thing of the past, in my own opinion, this is untrue. Classical ballet is the professional foundation for every dancer; even in modern dance, one cannot leave out the ABC’s of classical dance, because that would mean a step backward towards the degradation of the dancer’s profession in our society.
Ballet is work, hard work—during which you can never say ‘my work is done.’ You cannot rest on your laurels; it is an endless search for perfection, elegance, and grace. For many children starting out their studies of classical ballet, all the ‘shoving their legs around’ may feel endless and boring, but the art of ballet is a long-term journey in which, through systematic exercises, we each develop perfection of motion and control over the muscles throughout our bodies and try to win out over not only ourselves, but the limits of nature.”
BcA. Ján Nemec
