Biography
It’s much harder to write a biography in the first person, so at the risk of sounding incredibly strange (“Jacob just needed some time to get back in touch with myself”), I’m going to drop into third here.
Jacob Niedzwiecki was born in Ottawa, Canada, but wisely moved to Toronto a few weeks later. He began dancing at age five, wrote his first code at seven, and still refuses to settle on one or the other.
He trained in ballet and modern dance at Canada’s National Ballet School and the Etobicoke School of the Arts. While in high school, he toured with the now-defunct Ontario Ballet Theatre. In 2004 he joined the National Ballet of Canada, where he danced for three years in the corps de ballet. In 2007 he left the company to focus on his work as a choreographer and filmmaker.
Jacob has created three short dance films (Superposition, in 2007, Helioscape, in 2008, and Love in Vain, in 2009) and many choreographic works. He has choreographed in workshops for the National Ballet of Canada and Ballet Jörgen, and has worked independently with dancers from Toronto Dance Theatre. In November 2009, he traveled to Seoul, South Korea, to guest-teach and set a commissioned work on students from Chung Ang University. His work Bastard Fugue was a runner-up for the 2009 Paula Citron Award. He is currently in post-production on his fourth short film.
Jacob has created original projection design for several live shows, including Young People’s Theatre’s i think i can, which closed the National Arts Centre’s 2011 English Theatre season; David Tomlinson’s Wingéd and Esmerelda Enrique’s Espejo de Oro. He is currently working with The Chimera Project on The Calm Before….
Jacob has worked on a number of short and midlength films in both creative and production capacities. In addition to directing and editing his own choreographic work, he has worked on films with directors Veronica Tennant, Martha Burns, and Susan Coyne.
He has worked as a freelance video editor and web designer since 2007.