Jaione Zabala
Ballet Mistress
Jaione Zabala was born in Gernika, Basque Country.
She started dancing at the age of 5 in her home town. Following her studies at Joven Ballet de Bilbao and Maria de Avila school, she completed her dance training at Ion Beitia dance school in Las Arenas.
She started her professional dance carrier in Bilbao, at Ballet de Euskadi.
She, later on, joined the English National Ballet in London, then the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam until moving on to Germany to the Staatstheater Ballet Nürnberg in 2008.
In 2011, she received in Munich the Bavarian prize award, the Bayerischen Kunstförderpreis as outstanding dancer.
She has danced a large diverse repertoire and creations, which includes works from classical and neoclassical choreographies, to contemporary pieces.
In 2015-2018, Jaione joined the Oper Graz Ballett as Ballet mistress/ choreographic assistant under the direction of Jörg Weinöhl where she assisted his creations, as well works from Helge Letonia and Ainara Garcia Navarra among others.
In 2017/18, she was also engaged as choreographer for a production of the company “Wunderlich!”. A tripple bill evening for which she created a piece called “ Path”.
Between 2018-2020, she worked as a freelance guest ballet mistress and coach, offering ballet training, workshops, conditioning training and Gyrokinesis classes at different European dance companies and institutions:
Hessisches Staatsballett, Tanzcompagnie Giessen, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Bern Ballet, Codarts University Arts Rotterdam, University of Arts in Malta and many more.
She has been certified by the ABT American Ballet Theater, Teacher National Teacher Curriculum and she is a trainer of the GYROKINESIS® movement method.
In 2020/2021, joined the Hessisches Staatsballett as Ballet mistress/Rehearsal director under the direction of Bruno Heynderickx.
Her work as rehearsal director includes works from renowned choreographers like: Xie Xin, Imre and Marne van Opstal, David Raymond and Tiffany Tregarthen, Ohad Naharin, Marco Goecke, Nadav Zelner, Marc Brew, Tim Plegge, Edward Clug, Brian Arias among others.