The Cypriot principal soloist at Theatre Chemnitz in Germany takes us on a journey into the arduous yet mesmerising world of dance as she lives it, with the hope that her journey will inspire other dancers to pursue their dreams.
Twenty-five years after embarking on a journey to meet, as she puts it, her own star—now a mother of two young children—Natalia Krekou continues to dance. Her name has become synonymous with Theater Chemnitz, which she joined in 2013. “I’m here and I’m lucky,” she says today of her choice to live and work in a German city not particularly well known on the international arts scene—save for the fact it was named European Capital of Culture in 2025. “I believe it’s not the theatre that makes the dancer, but the dancer who makes the theatre. And here in Chemnitz, I’ve lived my dream to the fullest.”
“My life has always been a journey to find my own star,” she reflects. “From a young age, I learnt that the destination is the road itself—the mistakes, the courage, the loneliness, the discoveries, the joy, just as I read in Cavafy’s beloved ‘Ithaca’. And in the writings of Marie-Louise von Franz, who said: ‘To follow your own star means isolation, an unknown path, the need to find a completely new way instead of walking the one everyone else follows.’ It’s a difficult path.”
“The true artist is not one who obeys,” she insists. “It’s the one who dares to challenge, to experiment, to break the chain of repetition, to strip their art of the ‘should’ and reach their own truth. Technique is the foundation, but freedom is the summit. The dancer, the creator, the one searching for what’s authentic, only becomes an artist the moment they stop imitating and begin discovering.”
Motherhood, she says, has been her greatest challenge but also her deepest source of strength. With two small children (aged two and a half and nearly six), without any family nearby and with only her husband for support, continuing to dance as principal soloist is a genuine feat. “Dance remains my life, the source of my strength and expression,” she explains. “I don’t say this to boast. I hope my journey inspires others—dancers, mothers, artists, young people—to believe that their voice has value, their path is right, their dream is possible. And that true art begins the moment you dare to be yourself.”
In the eyes of the audience, dance looks simple, and that’s thanks to the dancer who makes it appear so, she notes. The spectator doesn’t grasp the extreme physical and mental effort behind every pirouette or leap. “Many professionals get swept up in competition and comparison, forgetting that, beyond being a sport, dance is above all an art form,” she observes. “Its essence remains expression and creation.”
One of a dancer’s greatest achievements, she believes, is managing to speak through their body and breath. “To discover the essence of movement, to learn their body, to tame it and simultaneously let it fly free with you,” she says. “The body knows before the mind does. It knows when it needs change, when it needs movement, when it needs to leap beyond the familiar. Many dancers often become trapped in what they’ve learnt and lose their own body’s voice. Sometimes, all that’s needed is a little more faith.”
“The true artist is one who finds the courage to step away from what’s ‘correct’ and find their own rhythm, truth and freedom,” she adds. “The key is to learn, to let go, to give yourself, to trust, to allow life to lead you to new horizons you hadn’t even imagined.”
The body remembers; it’s filled with wisdom, she stresses. With her experience as a dancer and her knowledge of the body, she believes she can offer something meaningful both to art and to the realm of high-level athletic performance. She has already begun taking specific courses so she can help dancers and athletes understand their bodies more deeply—not just push them, but protect them as well.
The years at the Bolshoi were very difficult, she recalls, but through that pressure she learnt to be herself. “I learnt that only through falling can you rise, that light emerges from difficulty,” she says. “There are certainly moments when you feel lost, when you hurt and cry, but then comes the breath, the spark, and you see that all of it was necessary. You carry on and grow stronger. I don’t think I could live through it again—it was something extraordinarily demanding.”
Cyprus could do more for the artists who represent it internationally, she argues. “Not for one, but for many—for all artists,” she emphasises. “People who’ve studied at top academies, who perform on major stages and who too often remain invisible, who leave to realise their dreams because their homeland doesn’t give them the tools to do so, and are lost. That’s how I feel too. A small country needs many voices. Recognition should be shared, not concentrated.”
Her book ‘One More…’, she explains, is an attempt to unite dreams, memory, dance and philosophy—a puzzle of a life lived between worlds. In 2023, she also created a short artistic dance film for Chemnitz—European Capital of Culture 2025, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, the result of years of research and internal narrative.
Yes, she admits, she has thought about retiring. “But I stay because I love what I do so much. And increasingly so. The future doesn’t belong to us anyway; no one can know what it holds.” She always thinks of the words of her director, Sabrina Sadowska: “You’re only now beginning to blossom.”
For her performances at the Theatre Chemnitz, click here.
