Nina Novak

March 23, 1923 – March 14, 2022  of East Norriton, Pennsylvania: 

“For me, to work on stage is the same as living and breathing” – Caracas, 2005

Nina Novak, 98, passed away on March 14, 2022 in East Norriton, Pennsylvania, nine days away from her 99th birthday. 

Nina Novak, a beloved aunt, dancer, choreographer and ballet teacher, was born on March 23, 1923, originally Janina Nowak, in Warsaw, Poland, to Jozef and Janina Nowak, of seven siblings. 

Nina passionately pursued a lifelong dedication to the art of dance and also to decades of teaching classic ballet. She began her study of ballet at the age of eight at the Polish Ballet School of the Warsaw Opera House in 1935, studying under prestigious teachers Bronislava Nijinska and Leon Woizikovsky. From 1937-1939, she was a soloist of the Polish Representative Ballet, and after the war in the ballet groups of Feliks Parnell and Mikołaj Kopiński. With the start of World War II, Nina was imprisoned in a forced labor camp. Nina lost both her brother Jozef and her father Jozef in concentration camps in Auschwitz and Dachau. As a young girl in the camp, she was put to work with little food and water making parts of airplane equipment for the Germans. She sent a letter to her ballet teacher in Warsaw through the German female guard who was responsible for watching over the young prisoners. She was then able to escape and return back to Warsaw before eventually leaving Poland for the United States in the second half of the 1940s. 

Her passion, discipline and perseverance stayed with her as she blossomed into having a very accomplished artistic career, touring the world as prima ballerina, teacher and choreographer over the course of her long, beautiful life. Upon arriving in the United States, by 1948, Nina was accepted to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo ballet company in New York City, directed by S. J. Denham, and was promoted to ballerina at the end of her first season. In 1954, Nina began dancing as the first soloist, Prima Ballerina, for Swan Lake, Coppelia by George Balanchine, Giselle and The Nutcracker and many other ballets. Her first choreographic work “Variations Classique” was extremely successful and it occupied a prominent place in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlos‘ repertoire. In 1958, Nina traveled to France to participate in The International Dance Festival in Enghien. She remained with the Ballet Russe company until 1962. 

Nina eventually settled permanently in Caracas, Venezuela in 1963, with her Venezuelan husband, where she continued dancing and began the next chapter of her life as teacher, founding the Nina Novak Classical Ballet Academy. Nina is recognized as a cultural treasure in Venezuela, where she helped lay the foundations of classical dance and taught thousands of students over 50 years. Nina is celebrated for raising the level of training standards, dignifying classical ballet in Venezuela and across Latin America. Students of Nina’s ballet company have competed and performed in the biggest competitions and most important ballet companies around the world. The successes of these students carry on her living legacy. 

It was a great honor for Nina to return to Poland and make guest appearances in 1961 in Warsaw and Poznań in the ballets Giselle and Swan Lake, and in 1978 in the Coppélia ballet at the Grand Theater of Warsaw.

In 1985, Vicente Nebrada invited her to join the Teresa Carreño Ballet as artistic director of the classical repertoire. This collaboration lasted 2 years. Later Nina was invited regularly to teach classes and dance with the company.

In 1987, the President of Venezuela bestowed upon Nina the Order of Andres Bello of the First Order. In 1996, Nina received the Casa del Artist Award for Best Choreographer. In 1997, Nina received the CONAC Teacher of the Year Award for Classical Dance. She is also the recipient of the Francisco de Miranda First Class Medal of Honor (Venezuela), the Commendatory Cross of Honor (Poland), the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, and UNESCO’s Vaslav Nijinsky Medal. 

Nina served on the 2002 and 2006 juries for the USA International Ballet Competition.

In 2010, Nina published her first book in Spanish called El Ballet Mi Vida, Mi Pasion.

In 2020, Nina published her second book Taniec na gruzach. Nina Novak w rozmowie z Wiktorem Krajewskim, consisting of an interview with Nina Novak by Wiktor Krajewski. 

Nina spoke Polish, English, Spanish, Russian and French. Some of her favorite pastimes while on tour and downtime from her training were reading many books and visiting museums.

She is survived and remembered by her beloved nieces and nephews and by thousands of her students around the world. 

Please stay posted for an announcement on her Public Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/ninanovakballet) for details of Nina’s upcoming Memorial service.