Liza Baliasnaja (she/her, b. 1994) is a choreographer and performer from Lithuania, based in Germany/Cologne, working internationally.

Over the past decade, she has developed a choreographic approach that integrates movement research, voice, and writing. She is interested in how power and violence take shape in and between bodies through language, history, and politics. Since 2023, in response to the geopolitical crisis in the Baltics and the growing influence of right-wing populism in Germany, her work explores how fear and disgust affect individual and collective bodies.

In 2016 she graduated from the P.A.R.T.S. Training Cycle in Brussels and in 2022 completed a BA in Philosophy at the University of KU Leuven.

Her works have been presented in Lithuania, Germany, and Belgium. Some of the significant venues include De Singel (BE), Tanzhaus NRW (DE), Tanzfaktur (DE), Kunstencentrum BUDA (BE), Kaaistudios (BE), Museum of Modern Art (LT), Lithuanian National Gallery of Art (LT), and festivals New Baltic Dance (LT), Nachtsicht (DE), Favoriten (DE), Contempo (LT), Tanz.Tausch (DE), among others.

Her two latest works Chiaroscuro (2024) and Shield is a Weapon (2025) have been nominated for the Lithuanian Theatre Award. She is a recipient of the Young Artist Award from the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture. Her solo Shield is a Weapon was named the most outstanding choreographic work of 2025 by the Lithuanian Contemporary Dance Association.

Her artistic practice is shaped by multiple significant collaborations. Between 2020–2022 she conducted a research and creation process together with Christine de Smedt and Theo Livesey around the notion of “Low Intensity Violence.” The project developed into an evening-length performance, The Third Room, which premiered at the “Radiant Nights” festival in De Singel, Antwerp.

Together with Rūta Junevičiūtė she is co-facilitating an ongoing workshop series/research, Sore Spots, addressing how unresolved history manifests in the body. The format emerged in the context of the interdisciplinary event Passing on Resilience, curated by Monika Dorniak in collaboration with the Lithuanian National Gallery of Art and the Goethe-Institut Lithuania.

Since 2016, she took part in numerous projects as a performer. She has danced in works by Eszter Salamon, Lenio Kaklea, Ula Sickle, DD Dorvillier, Mårten Spångberg, and Laura Stellacci.

She worked as a choreographic assistant with Lina Lapelytė on the performance for 70 children The Speech, which premiered in September 2024 as part of the Festival d’Automne at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris. She worked as an assistant and outside eye with Eszter Salamon on her works Monument 0.8: Manifestations and (M)OTHERS.

As a dramaturg, she has accompanied the processes of Urte Groblytė, Judith Dhont, Joseph Simon, and Ieva Navickaitė.

She regularly teaches theoretical and practical courses at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in Vilnius, University of Cologne, and Center for Contemporary Dance at the University of Music and Dance in Cologne.