Markéta Pimek Habalová will become Artistic Director of the Ballet of the National Theatre Brno from the 2028/2029 season. A long-standing member of the company, she is also a dance teacher, choreographer and director, and a close collaborator of the current Artistic Director, Mário Radačovský.
“When I applied for the position of Director of the National Theatre Brno, my assumption was that Daria Klimentová, an internationally respected ballet teacher and former prima ballerina, would take over the leadership of the BNT Ballet. We explored ways for her to join us in Brno from the 2028/2029 season, but unfortunately this proved impossible for professional reasons,” explains Petr Štědroň, Director-designate of the National Theatre Brno.
“After careful consideration, I therefore approached Markéta Pimek Habalová about becoming Artistic Director of the BNT Ballet from the 2028/2029 season. She is a long-standing member of the company, a dance teacher, choreographer and director, and a close collaborator of the current Artistic Director, Mário Radačovský. Her leadership will allow the company to build on its work to date, further develop its junior and senior ballet activities and, at the same time, explore new artistic forms. I also see considerable scope for future ballet co-productions with the National Theatre in Prague,” Štědroň adds.
Markéta Pimek Habalová was born in Brno and graduated from the Brno Dance Conservatory. She joined the Ballet of the National Theatre Brno in 1996 after completing her studies. From the 2008 season, she worked as a soloist with corps de ballet duties, and since 2019 she has been a ballet mistress. She has also worked with the Brno Dance Conservatory as a teacher and choreographer since 2010.
During her performing career, she danced title and solo roles in both classical and contemporary productions, including Carmen in Cayetano Soto’s Carmen, Edith Piaf and Korban in Libor Vaculík’s The Rite of Spring, a solo role in Mario Schröder’s A Moment for the Strawberry Mouth, for which she was longlisted for a Thalia Award, Marie in Petr Zuska’s Marie’s Dream, Daphné in Sylvia and Kateřina in Ballads.
She has been choreographing since 1997, when she worked on a television project. That same year, she became the leader of an amateur dance group, for which she also created choreography. Her work with professional dancers began with short pieces for international ballet competitions. The most successful of these, Vesoul, won first prize for contemporary choreography at the 2nd International Ballet Competition in Brno in 2006.
“The Ballet of the National Theatre Brno is my home and very close to my heart. Over the years I’ve spent here as a dancer and choreographer, both the theatre and its audience have become an inseparable part of my life. I therefore accept Petr Štědroň’s offer to lead the ballet company with enormous humility, love and respect,” says Markéta Pimek Habalová, adding:
“My aim is to build on the company’s successful repertoire to date and create a safe and inspiring environment for the dancers, where we can continue developing both classical ballet and contemporary work while also giving young talent space to grow within NdB 2. I want to bring Brno audiences productions full of emotion and living art – works that move them and stay with them long afterwards.”
When the junior company Ballet NdB 2 was established, Pimek Habalová became one of its leaders and created choreography for its programmes Vodník (2022), Tma (2023) and For2 (2024). Her first full-length ballet for the BNT Ballet was Prokofiev’s Cinderella (2022), which became one of the company’s most successful productions and represented the National Theatre Brno at children’s festivals in Macau, China, and Tampere, Finland. Her most recent choreography for the BNT Ballet is the critically acclaimed Kafka (2025).
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