Jan Bartoszek

Jan Bartoszek is an American choreographer.  As the founder and artistic director of Hedwig Dances, the 40-year old Chicago-based contemporary dance company, she has choreographed over 70 dances that critics have described as “intelligent, accomplished, moving” (Chicago Tribune) and “poignantly human” (Chicago Reader).  Ms. Bartoszek has presented her work in Chicago’s vibrant theaters, national performance venues such as the Aspen Institute and Joyce SoHo, and internationally in Cuba, Germany, Honduras, Mexico, Brazil and Canada. Through her interdisciplinary dance work, she has fostered a spirit of collaboration with other artists; merging choreography, objects, media, text and music to create dances that resonate with complexity and depth. 

Bartoszek has received choreographic fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois Arts Council (8), and was one of 12 Illinois choreographers selected to participate in New England Foundation for the Art’s Regional Dance Development Initiative (RDDI) in 2016.  In 2018 she developed a partnership between Hedwig Dances, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in Dessau, Germany, and the Institute of Design (formerly the New Bauhaus) at the Illinois Institute of Technology to create Fractals, a prelude to her work Futura.  The two works were performed in Chicago and Dessau, Germany for the 100th Anniversary of the Bauhaus.  She received a MacArthur International Connections Fund grant and 2014 National Performance Network Creation Fund and Forth Fund grants to develop and tour Trade Winds/Aires de Cambio, a dance collaboration with the Havana-based DanzAbierta.  Her choreography credits include work for theater (Steppenwolf, Northlight, Live Bait and Court theaters as well as choreographing and assisting in work by director Ping Chong), and opera (Dead Birds: A War Ritual with American Ritual Theater Company composer William Harper and director D.W. Moffet). She has choreographed four dance shows with Charlie Vernon and Michelle Banks under the auspices of Urban Gateways specifically designed for young audiences.  These shows have been performed throughout the Midwest in schools, museums and cultural centers. 

Ms. Bartoszek’s leadership garnered her 2024 Dance Legacy Award from See Chicago Dance as “an artistic leader who has enriched their community and made a significant and sustained impact on dance in Chicago” and a Ruth Page Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Dance Community for “keeping the spirit and vision of MoMing alive through her work at the Chicago Cultural Center, serving as an educator, mentor, presenter, administrator, and promoter of dance in the city with inspirational excellence.”  

Photo by Nadia Oussenko