Pavel Šmok

After his studies at the Prague Technical School and a short acting career at the well-known theater of his teacher E. F. Burian, Šmok finally came to ballet at an age when others are already at the top of their profession: he graduated from the dance department of the Prague Conservatory as a twenty-six year old. He made up for his late start with his gift for motion, a rare musicality, and an ambitious diligence. Sport had put him in good physical condition: in the year 1946 he was the figure-skating junior champion of the Czechoslovak republic. He also worked in the Prague Army Opera as a solo dancer, and in Plzeň, he danced a number of successful roles. A difficult spine operation hastened his decision to fully dedicate himself to choreography. He became ballet director at Ústí nad Labem (1958–1961), and for three seasons he worked in Ostrava. In 1964, he became the co-founder and choreographer of the independent touring ensemble Ballet Prague with which he traveled over a great part of the world; in 1968–1970 he served as its artistic director. In 1970, he left this ensemble for Basel, Switzerland, where he came to the forefront of ballet for three seasons. After his return to Prague he formed a dance group at the Prague Rococo Theater in 1976 with which he immediately performed a full-evening show. In 1980, this group became independent and assumed the name by which it is known today – The Prague Chamber Ballet.

Apart from being its founder, Pavel Šmok is the artistic leader, choreographer, and spirit of the Prague Chamber Ballet. He has produced ca. one-hundred ballets for both domestic and international stages (he has worked in Poland, Austria, Yugoslavia, Switzerland, France, the BDR, the GDR, the Netherlands, Hungary, the US, and the USSR). Apart from this, he has collaborated on the choreography of more than thirty operas, ca. thirty operettas, musicals, and revues, forty-five plays (five at the Laterna Magica) as well as many, many more for both film and television. He has also worked as the artistic director in productions of The Merry Widow in Basel and Lódz, The Pirates of Fortune by O. F. Korte in Vienna, and The Bartered Bride at the Prague National Theater. His extraordinary dramaturgical abilities have made him well-known as a writer of several ballet librettos and as the author-moderator of the entertaining educational program for children How to Make Ballet, which has had some 870 performances.

In all he has worked on thirty domestic stages and twenty-five abroad, and he has also made a presence in several television and film studios. He has trained a good number of exceptional interpreters in his ensembles, and many choreographers as a professor at the dance department of the Prague Academy of Music.

Pavel Šmok is a clear-minded, creative personality. His choreographic manuscript can be immediately recognized from the first steps or motions of his dancers. Next to his “heart”, he also brings into his work his intellect, and it is not by chance that the majority of his subjects and librettos are his own. His work elicits an exciting and rousing confessional of our time, as he frequently comments on the emotional and conceptual world of man today. Pavel Šmok is also an artist who is distinctly Czech. At the backbone of his repertoire are scores of both older and contemporary Czech composers, works which were often never foreseen as performance material for dance (i. e. chamber, symphonic, and vocal works). Šmok’s exceptional choreography comes in tune with the music to such an extent that audiences feel that they are “hearing” with their eyes.