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Nika Kljun

Legend of Dance

2010s

Why They Matter

Kljun matters as a bridge between Slovenia's organized studio and competition culture and the transnational commercial-dance circuit. Her significance is not only the list of artists and programs around which she has worked, but also the way she converted professional experience into a repeatable…

Known For

Dance

Biography

Nika Kljun is a Slovenian dancer, choreographer, and educator who built a transatlantic career connecting her family's Ljubljana studio culture to the American commercial-dance industry. Born and raised in Ljubljana, Kljun grew up at Bolero Dance Center, which her parents established as ballroom dancers when she was a small child. She began dancing at three and developed across jazz, tap, ballroom, Latin, funk, hip-hop, and related commercial forms within that studio environment. By her mid-teens, she was teaching, choreographing, and coaching at Bolero, and she competed extensively across European and international platforms.

Kljun extended her work through London and Paris before relocating to Los Angeles in 2010, a move that positioned her within the American commercial-dance circuit while she maintained her teaching presence internationally. Her professional affiliations span work with artists including Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Bieber, Pitbull, Ne-Yo, Jason Derulo, One Direction, Fifth Harmony, and Kehlani. She has also contributed choreography to television productions including *America's Got Talent*, *So You Think You Can Dance*, *The Ellen DeGeneres Show*, and the *Mickey Mouse 90th Anniversary Spectacular*.

Kljun developed a distinctive public teaching presence through studio classes, dance convention faculty work, and creator-controlled filmed choreography. Beginning in 2013, she published class combinations set to commercial recordings—including Justin Bieber's "#thatPOWER" and "What Do You Mean?" (co-created with Sonny) and Janet Jackson's "Made for Now"—that paired hip-hop phrasing with legible musical accents, allowing dancers worldwide to study her material. These videos became central to her international teaching profile.

Throughout her career, Kljun has remained institutionally connected to Bolero Dance Center, where she serves as co-owner. Multiple professional biographies describe her as a Slovenian Ambassador of Dance. In her own account, she frames her work as a continuing exchange among teaching, choreography, travel, and the studio culture in which she grew up—a model that remains active across her convention teaching and Los Angeles-based professional work.

Legacy & Impact

Kljun matters as a working model of exchange between organized studio and competition culture and the transnational commercial-dance circuit. Her significance lies not only in the artists and productions around which she has worked, but in her conversion of performance experience into repeatable teaching practice distributed through studios, conventions, and creator-controlled video. Her continuing connection to Bolero gives that circulation an institutional base rooted in Slovenia, rather than presenting her career as a purely individual Los Angeles success story.

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