Anna Mária Bólya, PhD habil., is an ethnographer and music theory educator with a doctoral degree in dance folklore and a habilitation in dance philosophy. She currently serves as Managing Director of Arts and Research Ltd. and is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Art Theory and Methodology of the Hungarian Academy of Arts (MMA). She also lectures at the doctoral schools of the University of Debrecen and the University of Pécs and is a member of the Dance Science Working Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA). Her research explores the intersection of dance and religious anthropology, with a particular focus on dance as a form of sacral expression and its anthropological dimensions.

Her main areas of expertise include religious anthropology—examining the human as homo festivus through the lens of movement; art theory—investigating the autonomous development of Hungarian dance art, the evolution of the Hungarian choreographic school, and the dialogue between folk and contemporary dance forms; and ethnomusicology—analyzing the musical characteristics and rhythmic systems of Balkan chain dances. In the field of art education, she leads innovative projects in 3D-based dance pedagogy.

In addition to her academic work, she is the founder of the Ohrid Macedonian Folk Ensemble and frequently appears as a guest lecturer at international universities.