*1953 in Rabenau, lives in Berlin

Arila Siegert is a choreographer, performer and director. She comes from dance; she trained under Gret Palucca. Her first engagement was in Berlin in at Komische Oper. In 1979, she joined Staatsoper Dresden as a soloist. In 1987, she founded her first dance theatre at Staatsschauspiel Dresden and later at the Anhaltisches Theater Dessau, where she was an “appointed expert” for the Bauhaus stage. Numerous full-length ballets were created, she performed solo evenings all over the world. One of her most defining experiences was working with Ruth Berghaus on Hans Werner Henze’s Orpheus ballet in Vienna. She directed her first opera in 1998; since then, she has staged fifty operas. Arila Siegert was awarded the Critics’ Prize for Dance in 1989 and the Federal Cross of Merit in 1993. She is a member of the Saxon Academy of Art and of the Goethe Institute’s General Meeting. Her materials are kept at the Archives of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin. The book Arila Siegert. Tänzerin Choreografin Regisseurin was published by the Akademie der Künste in 2014.

Since 1997 she is a memen of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, section Performing Arts.