inspiration.
confidence.
wellbeing.
Our
Artistic Director
Vitek Wincza
Founder, Artistic, and Executive Director
The Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts
HCA Society
Arts For All
About HCA
The arts have the power to change how we see ourselves and each other.
Vitek Wincza trained as a professional dancer from the State Ballet School in Gdansk, Poland. He performed with the Musical Theatre of Gdynia, Poland, the Grand Opera, the Ballet Theatre of Lodz, Poland, and the National Dance Company "Mazowsze," touring throughout North America. After several successful performances at Hamilton Place, he decided to stay permanently in Canada. In 1982, following his defection, he ran his own dance school in the Burlington and Hamilton area.
In 1991, he founded the Canadian Ballet Youth Ensemble, becoming its Artistic Director, to give talented young dancers the opportunity to perform alongside professional artists, dancers, musicians, composers, and choreographers. During his artistic leadership, he created, choreographed, and produced full-length productions including the ballet Snow White, with an original score by Bogdan Pawlowski. After a successful run in Canada, Snow White was invited to an international theatre and dance festival in Kiev, Ukraine, where Wincza was awarded the silver medal for achievements in cultivating and maintaining the art of classical ballet by the Diaghilev Foundation in Moscow, Russia.
The Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra commissioned Vitek to create and choreograph several performances for young audiences, including Babar the Elephant and The Carnival of the Animals, among others. In 1993, he invited the Balletto di Napoli to perform their award-winning ballet Marco Polo on a three-city tour of Hamilton, Toronto, and Montreal. In 1995, he approached choreographer Robert Desrosiers to create a modern dance version of Pinocchio for the Canadian Ballet Youth Ensemble, which toured extensively throughout Ontario and abroad. In 1996, the Government of Poland honoured Vitek with a cultural merit award for outstanding contributions to the arts.
It's all about vision and seeing the possibilities.
VITEK WINCZA
Wincza has served as Founder and Programming Director since 1996 of Culture for Kids in the Arts (now Arts For All), a registered charity dedicated to providing high-quality arts experiences to children and youth regardless of financial circumstance, and to promoting the role of arts in education. To date, AFA has brought arts experiences into the school system for over 40,000 children and youth.
In 1997, Vitek created, choreographed, and produced the full-length ballet Hamilton Nutcracker, featuring 30 dancers from the Kiev Ballet Theatre (Ukraine), the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, and 90 local dancers. It played to sold-out audiences at Hamilton Place Theatre for eight consecutive years. That same year, Vitek revived the 100-year history of the Hamilton Conservatory of Music, relaunching it as the Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts with over 100 programs in music, dance, drama, and visual arts.
In 2001, Vitek founded HCA Dance + Theatre (now HCA Society), a non-profit organization dedicated to professional artists and the creation of new, innovative work in dance, music, drama, and visual arts. Its performances have included Robert Desrosiers' original choreographed work Circus Dream, and An Evening with Michael Ondaatje, in which the Oscar-nominated author's poetry (from The English Patient) was interpreted by artists into dance and music. Displacement, commissioned and presented by HCA Dance + Theatre, played to sold-out audiences in Hamilton in 2008 and was part of Harbourfront Centre's Next Steps series in 2009–10; it was named one of the Top 10 Dance Shows of 2009 by NOW Magazine's Glen Sumi.
In 2004, the City of Hamilton awarded Vitek the City of Hamilton Arts Award for Dance, and later that year he received the WNED and Steuben Canadian Arts Award. His other honours include Hamilton's Vision 2020 award (1998), recognition from Moscow's Diaghilev Foundation (2003), and the City of Hamilton Arts Award for Community Arts (2012).
