The famous Albanian dancer Ilir Kerni has been awarded the highest Order of Honor of the Nation in Croatia. Ilir Kerni was born in Tirana on May 18, 1959. He graduated from the Ballet Academy in 1977. As a primo dancer, he was immediately engaged in the Opera House in Tirana. He is was the director of the Opera and Ballet Theater in 2013.

Kerni’s life outside Albania began in 1990, when he won the UNESCO scholarship for pedagogy and dance, at the “Grand Opera” in Paris. After completing the latter, he was engaged in the “Opera de Strasbourg”. From 1994 to the end of 2013, Kerni was engaged as a prima ballerina in the “National Theater of Zagreb, where he was decorated several times with the “Oskar Ormosh” award, and in 2002 he was awarded the “Highest Award in Croatia” for the role of Mephistopheles in the ballet “Faust”, as the best role, a prize for which he has been nominated three more times.

The Albanian primo-ballerini holds the position of Ballet Director at the National Theater of Split until 2023. Kerni has also received the title “Honour of the Nation” in Albania, awarded by President Ilir Meta in 2021.

/Klara Ruci/