Jan Cina wins Czech Television's StarDance 2021 competition with Adriana Mašková
The victors of this year’s StarDance competition, produced by public broadcaster Czech Television, are Jan Cina and Adriana Mašková. Others competing for the title were the clergywoman Martina Viktorie Kopecká dancing with Marek Dědík and the figure skater Tomáš Verner dancing with Kristýna Coufalová.
Cina and Mašková performed their first-ever numbers of cha-cha, tango and freestyle during the finale on StarDance, and chose the paso doble as their best number. The jury give them four “10”s for the freestyle and paso doble, two “10s” and two “9s” for the cha-cha, but they mainly got the most audience votes.
“Dear one, my lady, I thank you for what we have experienced and lived through together and I remember the moment in the beginning when we told each other we wanted to really enjoy this, and that joy is terribly important, and I thank you for our having succeeded, I really love you,” Cina thanked his dance partner even as he was moved to tears. The jury highly appreciated the energy and talent of 33-year-old Cina, who is also, for example, the winner of a “Czech Lion” for performing the main role in the 2020 series Herec (The Actor) and who has also appeared in the fairy tale films Čertí brko (Devil’s Quill) or Slíbená princezna (The Promised Princess).
Cina is an actor, dancer, dubber, moderator and singer from Prague with Romani roots. His acting talent appeared as early as his nursery school days, when he used it to entertain his peers.
His parents were amateur actors and developed and supported his talent from the very beginning. In primary school his childhood dream of performing remained strong, so he began attending an arts school.
Cina’s experience with his very first film, Smradi (Brats, 2002), directed by Zdeněk Tyc, deterred him from the profession of his dreams, because he discovered that becoming an actor would decidedly not be a walk in the park. For that reason, he began to head in a different direction and slowly lost his interest in acting.
When choosing a high school, Cina’s parents played the main role, as they did not want his acting talent to go to waste, and they encouraged him to audition for the Prague Conservatory, from which he graduated in musical theater. He then attended the Theater Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU) in the Department of Alternative and Puppet Theater under the direction of the SKUTR duo (Martin Kukučka and Lukáš Trpišovský).
In 2019, Cina was nominated for a Thálie Prize in the Musical category for his performance in Malý princ (The Little Prince). He had captivated viewers in 2016 in the television series Pustina (The Wasteland), and that same year performed in the second season of the competitive television program Tvoje tvář má známý hlas (“Your Face has a Familiar Voice”), where his renditions of the opera singer Montserrat Caballé and other performers (Madonna, LMFAO, André 3000, Johny Legend, Naďa Urbánková, Green Day) were phenomenal.
Cina won that contest and donated the prize money of CZK 150 000 [EUR 6 000] to the Ondrášek Mobile Hospice. He is also a supporter of the intiative Jsme fér (We Are Fair), which promotes same-sex marriage, the Museum of Romani Culture, and the KHER press, which publishes literature by Romani authors.
