Tenald Zace

Tenald Zace was born in Tirana, Albania. He began his training there at the National Ballet School of Albania and completed it at the Zurich University of the Arts. Following his first engagement in 2004 at the Landestheater Schleswig-Holstein, he moved to the Kiel Ballet under the direction of Mario Schröder, with whom he joined the Leipzig Ballet in 2010. Two years later, he joined the Hessian State Theatre in Wiesbaden under Stephan Thoss and was transferred to the Hessian State Ballet in Darmstadt/Wiesbaden in 2014. From 2016 until July 2019, he danced at the National Theatre in Mannheim, once again under the direction of Stephan Thoss.

Throughout his career, he has worked with numerous renowned choreographers, including Damien Jalet, Crystal Pite, Stephan Thoss, Marco Goecke, Giuseppe Spota, Frank Fannar Pedersen, Johan Inger, Jiří Pokorný, Jiří Kylián, Felix Landerer, Richard Siegal, Alexander Ekman, Mario Schröder, Václav Kuneš, Itzik Galili and Christopher Bruce.

Tenald Zace has created choreographies for the Kiel Ballet, the Aalto Ballet Essen, the Leipzig Ballet and the National Theatre Mannheim. He has also gained experience as a lighting designer, including at the National Theatre Mannheim, the Basel Ballet and the Theater Vorpommern.

Since the 2019/20 season, he has been the rehearsal and training director of the MiR Dance Company. Since 2023, he has been choreographing for the opera at the Musiktheater im Revier, including works such as *Salome*, *A Night in Venice* and *The Little Shop of Horrors*.