Christiana Stefanou

 Mag.^a Christiana Stefanou has been the director of the Vienna State Opera Ballet Academy since August 2020. She has extensive dance pedagogical knowledge, many years of professional experience as a dancer, teacher, guest lecturer, ballet director and coach as well as a Master's degree in Dance Pedagogy from the University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

After studying ballet at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, she became a member of the Bavarian State Ballet, with whom she performed numerous major solo roles in the classical and modern repertoire. 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, Bavarian State Ballet, 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.