Zhana Pencheva

I am a Bulgarian dance artist working between Sofia, Burgas, and Stockholm and other European contexts. I hold Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Dance and Choreography from New Bulgarian University, and a Master’s degree in New Performative Practices from Stockholm University of the Arts (2025). I have also participated in international educational programmes including DanceWeb, Nomad Dance Academy, and Creative Crossroads. My artistic practice is driven by sensuality, eroticism, intimacy, love, and the relational spaces of the body. I work through dance, choreography, and performance. Working in close dialogue with music, sound, and lighting, I create dance and choreographic works that explore dance as a space of encounter, imagination, and transition. Selected works include Six Love Songs (2019), Dance Baby, Dance (2021), Before Disappearing (2024), Glass of Love, Garden, and I Love When You’re Watching Me (2025). In 2018, together with Aleksandar Georgiev- Ace and Dario Barreto Damas, we co-founded STEAM ROOM, an international artistic team working through collective authorship practices. Since 2020, we have also been co-developing the Imaginative Choreographic Center (ICC), a long-term project fostering collective practices, shared responsibility, and critical engagement in dance and choreography. As a dancer and performer, I have worked with artists and companies including Israel Aloni, United Cowboys, Sasha Waltz & Guests, Marion Darova, Aleksandar Georgiev, Paula Rosolen, Petya Stoykova, and Yasen Vasilev, among others.

  • Winter 2027 MR@Judson Artist
A female dancer is captured in a dynamic dance position. Her knees are bent, giving her body a low, grounded stance. She is wearing a long-sleeved leopard printed top, leaving her legs visible from the shorts down. Only one arm is clearly visible, bent at the elbow, while the rest of her body is turned partly away from the viewer. Her posture suggests movement and concentration, as if she has been caught in the middle of a dance. photo by Manoj Bandaru.
ID: A female dancer is captured in a dynamic dance position. Her knees are bent, giving her body a low, grounded stance. She is wearing a long-sleeved leopard printed top, leaving her legs visible from the shorts down. Only one arm is clearly visible, bent at the elbow, while the rest of her body is turned partly away from the viewer. Her posture suggests movement and concentration, as if she has been caught in the middle of a dance. photo by Manoj Bandaru.