He was born in Mariánské Lázně in the Czech Republic in 1983.

 

In 1990 he became a member of the folk-dance group STAZKA in Teplá. From 1994 to 1997 he studied at the J. Doleček Ballet School in Karlovy Vary and since 1998 at the Duncan Centre Conservatory in Prague. In 2003, he moved to Berlin where he collaborated with Farhad Payer and Yasmine Kalifa on the theatre performance Jack and Harun and with the band Toula Limnaios on the performance Irrsinn. In 2004, he worked with Jochen Roller on the choreography Mindgarden, danced in the duet Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda with Mirella Wiengarten as well as in her dance film Circulatura. In 2007, he participated in the Mayim Mayim project at the Stadttheater Nurenberg / Furth. In 2010, he collaborated with William Forsythe on the Human Writes project and Jiří Havelka and Tiger Lillies on the performance Here I Am a Human.

​

He has been working with Sasha Waltz since 2003 and in 2007, he became a permanent member of Sasha Waltz & Guests. He has danced in the choreographies of Sasha Waltz noBody, Insideout, Dido & Aeneas, Medea, Jagden und Formen, Continu, Matsukaze, Sacre, L'Après-midi d’un fauna, Kreatur, Exodos. He has collaborated on the preparation and implementation of many other dance projects (e.g. Dialoge Neues Museum, Romeo and Juliet, Dailoge Maxxi, Carmen, Dialoge Calcutta ...). In 2014, Bartovanec danced at the Sasha Waltz Installation exhibition. Objects. Performance at ZKM Karlsruhe. He collaborated on the performance UN / RUHE – Sandig / Saunders choreographed by Antonio Ruz. He participated in the project Figure Humaine / Sasha Waltz – inaugural official opening of the Elbe Philharmonic / Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. He collaborated with Robert Wilson on Luther, Dancing with the Gods. He is currently working with Sasha Waltz at the Berlin State Ballet as Rehearsal Director on the new performance SYM-PHONIE 2020.

His first choreography When my mind is rocking, I know it’s 7 premiered in April 2008 as part of the project Choreographen der Zukunft / Choreographers of the Future by Sasha Waltz & Guests. This was followed by Ane's solo (Berlin, 2010) and many other choreographies which he performed on several European and African stages. In Lome, he created the choreography Door of No Return (2011) as part of the Goethe Institute’s program.

In 2014, he created the group choreography GLOBE and his latest choreographies include Entropy, RAZZLE DAZZLE, which he presented in New York as part of the Czech Centre programme and the Moving sound festival.

He organizes several workshops such as Ausser Mir (for refugee children and Dance in school in Berlin) and workshops on the repertoire of Sasha Waltz (Radial System in Berlin) From Improvisation towards Repertoire.

In 2014 and 2015, he collaborated with Cia Mamajeang Kim Seoul and Daegu City Dance Company. He worked with the Spitfire Company on the performance of Sniper’s Lake.

He also creates choreographies for other groups, the last of which includes Tantehorse and the performance Lessons of Touch. In 2016, he worked on several projects. Project with the conservatory Duncan Centre Rite of Spring / Igor Stravinsky. He thus founded a project for the third year at the conservatory that gives its students the opportunity to meet with the choreographer, to create a performance, to get acquainted with the whole process of staging a performance. This project has been running for six years. For the Rite of Spring, Bartovanec received a Special Mention Award from the international jury at the Czech Dance Platform. He mediated the performance of The Rite of Spring in New York and subsequently collaborated with the choreographer Yoshiko Chuma and the students of the Duncan Centre at the National Gallery at the Ai Wei Wei exhibition.

Projects for the Brno National Theatre followed. He created the production of The Odyssey and the performance OBRYS with the actors of the Brno National Theatre, which he also presented in New York.

He created a choreographed his own version of The Opening of Wells in production directed by J. A. Pitínský.

He created the Prague – New York Effects project in the programme of the Czech Centre in New York in collaboration with the American singer and actress Helga Davis.

One of his latest projects is the performance RELEVANTE SYSTEME choreographed by Sasha Waltz. The latest choreography is RAPTURE in collaboration with Nicola Mascia. He also collaborated on the film OVERTURE OF SOMETHING THAT NEVER ENDED for the fashion brand GUCCI, directed by Gus Van Sant.

In the last year he turned his focus on creating new different performances that were filmed as a Dance for camera: Traeum weiter!, the project in collaborations with Komplex Theater Chemnitz; RESISTANZ in collaboration with unitedberlin ensamble/Zionkirche Berlin.

Jiří Bartovanec teaches as an external lecturer at the Dance Centre Conservatory in Prague, where he is also a member of the Conservatory’s artistic council. In 2020, Jiří Bartovanec came back to Duncan Centre Conservatory, first with the educational project in collaboration with Duncan Centre and Archa Theater, restaging a piece from Sasha Waltz Kreatur with Duncan Centre students. In 2021, he once again created and taught a new performance at the Duncan Centre Conservatory SKRZ.

 

He worked on “remains”, a piece by Andrew Schneider