SNP Actors Back Ballet Dancers in Dispute With Aja Jung

On Tuesday, September 29, most of the acting company at the Serbian National Theatre (SNP) in Novi Sad publicly told their colleagues in the ballet that they are not alone. N1 carried the statement, which, according to reports, is signed by the majority of the theatre’s actors. The support came on the same day that the ballerinas and their lawyer laid out the details of the dispute with ballet director Aja Jung for the first time.

What did the actors tell the ballet company?

The actors addressed the ballerinas in a short post, and N1 published part of it in full:

“Dear colleagues from the ballet company of the Serbian National Theatre, we stand with you in your fight for dignity, respect and the right to a workplace free of mobbing and pressure. Your courage to speak out about what you are going through deserves the support and respect of the entire artistic community.”

Art, the signatories added, must not rest on fear, humiliation and silence, but on freedom, mutual respect and the dignity of every artist. What the statement does not say is how many actors signed it, only that they make up a larger part of the company.

Who sued whom, and in which court?

The sources disagree on the number of plaintiffs. N1 reports that more than 10 ballerinas with decades of experience filed the suit, Danas says there are ten, and Vreme puts it at eleven ballerinas and ballet dancers. According to Vreme, the suit was filed with the Higher Court in Novi Sad on July 20 against the theatre itself, over mobbing attributed to the ballet’s artistic director. N1 and Danas describe it as a suit against Aja Jung, so the difference is worth keeping in mind until a court settles who the defendant in the proceedings is.

The suit was preceded by a request in June from 26 dancers to the SNP management, asking for a review of the ballet director’s artistic qualifications and professional experience. According to N1, the ballerinas also submitted an initiative to dismiss the director, citing incompetence and a lack of professional experience. Jung has headed the ballet since autumn 2024, and Danas notes that relations in the company have been deteriorating ever since, with the conflict now lasting a year and a half.

What do the ballerinas and their lawyer list as grievances?

According to the three outlets, the list of complaints includes:

• removing older dancers from the repertoire, which the lawyer calls “mobbing by empty table”
• mandatory daily conditioning exercises for dancers over 40, backed by the threat of disciplinary measures, in a room the ballerinas describe as unsuitable and without a trained instructor
• control auditions for soloists, which Ljubica Mandic says the rules do not provide for
• the retirement of 12 ballet dancers, eight of whom were returned to work by court order
• the hiring of foreign dancers, including, employees claim, some with no professional dancing experience

The ballerinas’ lawyer, Srdjan Kovacevic, tells Danas that the hardest part of this list is the demand made of the older members of the company:

“To ask someone who has had a career of 30 years with a privileged length of service or more, to ask them to perfect their ballet technique in their old age was simply humiliating.”

Ballerina Ljubica Mandic speaks about the younger dancers. According to her, around 20 young dancers had their employment contracts terminated, some left on their own, and some were taken in by the National Theatre in Belgrade. In the same context, Vreme writes about the dismissal of dancers from Serbia hired on a part-time basis, with the explanation that SNP has no need for them. Mandic rounds off the picture this way:

“When you are a young artist, and especially in ballet, where a working life is short, and someone denies you the right to dance in your best years, you have no prospects.”

What does the ruling they cite say?

Kovacevic and the dancers rely on a ruling by the First Basic Court in Belgrade dated March 26, 2024. According to Vreme, it states that Aja Jung “was never engaged as a classical ballet dancer.” From this, Kovacevic concludes that she does not meet the requirement of five years of dancing experience which, he says, the staffing rulebook sets for the post of ballet director.

The lawyer says he sent the ruling to the SNP management. No reply came:

“The management turned a deaf ear to this. They gave no answer at all, and all that was left to us was to inform the public about what is going on inside SNP, and because this is only a drop in the ocean compared with all the problems that have piled up since Jung took over as head of the SNP Ballet.”

What does the other side say?

Danas tried to get a comment from Aja Jung on the claims of the ballerinas and their lawyer, but she was unavailable by the time the piece was finalized. The Danas article does not say that questions were also put to the SNP management, so its position is known for now only indirectly, from the lawyer’s claim that there was no reply to his letter.

Kovacevic himself notes that a court will make the final call on whether the treatment of the ballerinas amounted to workplace abuse. Mandic sees the dispute as bigger than the position of those who filed the suit:

“The Ballet of the Serbian National Theatre is an institution of public and national importance, financed from the budget of the Republic of Serbia, and it must not be treated as anyone’s private company, including Aja Jung’s.”