Christiana Stefanou

Christiana Stefanou has been the director of the Vienna State Opera Ballet Academy since August 2020. She has extensive dance pedagogical knowledge and decades of professional experience as a dancer, teacher, guest lecturer, ballet director and coach of many renowned artists. She completed her Master's degree in dance education at the University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
However, her career first led Christiana Stefanou to Munich, where she studied dance at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater and was subsequently engaged by the Bavarian State Ballet. There she worked as a dancer for many years and interpreted many of the great classical and modern solo roles. After her successful career on stage, Christiana Stefanou worked as ballet master for the Ballet of the Greek National Opera of Athens and became director of the company. At the same time she began teaching at the State Ballet Academy of the Greek National Opera and at the School of Performing Arts Greece. 
As a guest ballet master and dance teacher, she has worked with the most important companies in the world, among others the Dutch National Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Ballett am Rhein Düsseldorf Duisburg, Boston Ballet, English National Ballet, Bayerisches Staatsballett, National Ballet Romania, Czech National Ballet, Balletto dell’Opera di Roma, Ballett Theater Basel, at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Munich and at the San Francisco Bay Point Ballet School. 
She is also in demand as a coach for many important ballerinas and dancers of our time such as Polina Semionova, Lucia Lacarra, Anna Tsygankova, Friedemann Vogel, Daniel Camargo as well as Paulo Arrais. Furthermore, she has been invited to restage the major classical ballets such as »Swan Lake«, »Don Quixote«, »Nutcracker« and »Giselle« with many major ballet institutions worldwide. 
In 2022, Christiana Stefanou choreographed "Gioconda's Smile" for the matinee of the Ballet Academy of the Vienna State Opera, in 2023 and 2024 she created the choreographies for the students of the Ballet Academy of the Vienna State Opera to Joseph Lanner's "Tarantel-Galopp" and Piotr I. Tchaikovsky's Ecossaise from "Eugen Onegin" for the opening ceremonies of the Vienna Opera Ball.