Michał Paweł Piróg (born 28 May 1979,
Kielce
Kielce (; ) is a city in south-central Poland and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the banks of the Silnic ...
) is a Polish
dancer
Dance is an The arts, art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often Symbol, symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...
,
choreographer
Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A chor ...
,
TV presenter
A television presenter (or television host, some become a "television personality") is a person who introduces or hosts television programs, often serving as a mediator for the program and the audience. It is common for people who garnered fam ...
, actor and
television personality
Celebrity is a condition of fame and broad public recognition of a person or group due to the attention given to them by mass media. The word is also used to refer to famous individuals. A person may attain celebrity status by having great w ...
.
Life and career
He graduated from the
Cyprian Norwid
Cyprian Kamil Norwid (; – 23 May 1883) was a Polish poet, dramatist, painter, sculptor, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the four most important Polish Romanticism, Polish Romantic poets, though scholars still debate whether he is ...
High School No. 3 in Kielce and studied
philosophy
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
at the
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University (, UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great, King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and one of the List of oldest universities in con ...
in
Kraków
, officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...
. He is a self-taught dancer. At the age of 19, he started to work as a dancer at the Kielce Dance Theatre. He appeared in numerous theatre and television productions including Piotr Galiński's ballet performance ''Być albo brać'' ("To Be or To Take"),
John Kander
John Harold Kander (born March 18, 1927) is an American composer, known largely for his work in the musical theater. As part of the songwriting team Kander and Ebb (with lyricist Fred Ebb), Kander wrote the scores for 15 musicals, including ''Cab ...
's ''
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
'' at the Komedia Theatre in Warsaw,
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948) is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End theatre, West End and on Broadway theatre, Broad ...
's ''
Cats
The cat (''Felis catus''), also referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the ...
'' at the Roma Music Theatre in Warsaw, ''Ballady morderców'' ("Murder Ballads") at the Bajka Kinoteatr as well as
Neil LaBute
Neil N. LaBute (born March 19, 1963) is an American playwright, film director, and screenwriter. He is best known for a play that he wrote and later adapted for film, ''In the Company of Men'' (1997), which won awards from the Sundance Film Fest ...
's play ''
Fat Pig
''Fat Pig'' is a play by Neil LaBute. The play premiered off-Broadway in 2004 and won the 2005 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play. The play had its West End premiere in 2008 and was nominated for the Laurence Olivier ...
'' at the Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw.
He worked as a dancer and choreographer in the ''Droga do gwiazd'' TV program broadcast on
TVN Channel. In 2006, he co-hosted, alongside
Edyta Herbuś
Edyta Herbuś (; born 26 February 1981) is a Polish dancer, model (person), model, and actress. Edyta was the winner of the Eurovision Dance Contest 2008 with partner Marcin Mroczek representing Poland.
Biography
Born in Kielce, Poland, Edyt ...
, the ''W rytmie MTV'' programme. In 2007, he became one of the judges on the ''
You Can Dance: Po prostu tańcz!''
talent show
A talent show or talent contest is an event in which participants perform the arts of singing, dancing, lip-syncing, acting, martial arts, playing an instrument, poetry, comedy or other activities to showcase skills. Many talent shows are p ...
. In the same year, he appeared in Polish rock band
Ira's music video to the song ''Trochę wolniej''. In 2008, he co-hosted, together with
Joanna Liszowska and Rafał Maserak, the ''Twój prywatny instruktor tańca'' show ("Your Private Dance Teacher"). In 2010, he started to work as a host in Poland's edition of the ''
Top Model
''Top Model'', also called ''Next Top Model'', is a fashion-themed reality television show format produced in many countries throughout the world and seen in over 120 countries producing over 200 seasons (referred to as "cycles"). The show t ...
'' television series, initially aired on
TVN Style
TVN Style is a Polish-language pay-TV channel aimed at women featuring the latest in fashion, health and beauty. It was first launched on 1 August 2004 and a part of the TVN (Polish TV channel), TVN network, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.
Line ...
. He has collaborated with singer
Andrzej Piaseczny
Andrzej Tomasz Piaseczny (Polish: ; born 6 January 1971 in Pionki) more commonly known as Piasek, is a Polish singer-songwriter, actor, and television personality. Former :pl:Mafia (zespół muzyczny), Mafia singer, Member of the Phonographic Ac ...
and ''Plastic'' music band and worked on choreography to their music videos.
He also works as a dance instructor at the Autorska Szkoła Musicalowa in
Olsztyn
Olsztyn ( , ) is a city on the Łyna River in northern Poland. It is the capital of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, and is a city with powiat rights, city with county rights. The population of the city was estimated at 169,793 residents
Olsz ...
and organizes numerous dance and acting workshops across Poland. As a professional dancer he specializes in
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
,
modern jazz
Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerou ...
, afro jazz,
modern dance
Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert dance, concert or theatrical dance which includes dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th ...
,
funky jazz and broadway jazz and has collaborated with a number of theatres in Poland, France, Belgium and Switzerland.
He established a two-year dancing project Horn Dance Company in partnership with Joanna Wasiuk. In 2017, he appeared alongside Piotr Czaykowski, on TVN's
reality show
Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring ordinary people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1990s ...
''
Asia Express
The ''Asia Express'' (, ) was a super express passenger train operated by the South Manchuria Railway (''Mantetsu'') from 1934 until 1943. This limited express, which began operation in November 1934 and was Mantetsu's most iconic train, operate ...
''.
Personal life
He openly identifies as
gay
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...
. He is Jewish from his mother's side and has an older brother Sebastian. He is a member of the
Jewish Religious Community of Warsaw.
Filmography
*2009: ''Zamiana'' as Joni
*2014: ''Wkręceni 2'' as juror
*2016: ''Druga szansa'' as himself
*2016-2017: ''Wmiksowani.pl'' as Zibi Dól
*2017: ''Drunk History - Pół litra historii'' as narrator
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pirog, Michal
1979 births
Living people
Polish male dancers
Polish LGBTQ dancers
Polish LGBTQ broadcasters
Polish choreographers
Polish male television actors
Polish gay actors
Gay dancers
LGBTQ choreographers
Actors from Kielce
21st-century Polish male actors
21st-century Polish LGBTQ people
21st-century Polish Jews
Gay Jews
Male actors from Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship