José Carlos Martínez (dancer)

José Carlos Martínez (born in 1969 Cartagena) is a Spanish dancer and choreographer, former Etoile of the Paris Opera Ballet and since December 2010 artistic director of the Spanish National Dance Company.

He is the only dancer to have received the Prix Benois de la Danse, the Gold medal of the Varna International Ballet Competition and the Prix de Lausanne, among the most prestigious dance competitions in the world. The Japanese review Shinshokan Dance Magazine has thus recognised him has one of the best dancers in the world.

He studied dance with Pilar Molina in Cartagena then at the École supérieure de danse de Cannes Rosella Hightower. In 1987 he received the Prix de Lausanne and entered the same year the Paris Opera Ballet School, then the Paris Opera Ballet in 1988, where he was named principal dancer in 1997. In 1992, he was awarded the Gold medal of the Varna International Ballet Competition and in 1999 the Premio Nacional de Danza.

He performed the main classical ballets like Swan Lake, Giselle, Don Quixote, La Bayadère, The Sleeping Beauty, Raymonda, Paquita, The Nutcracker, La Sylphide, Romeo and Juliet and neoclassical ballets by Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Kenneth MacMillan, Yury Grigorovich, Antony Tudor, Serge Lifar, Harald Lander and John Cranko, among others. He danced as well pieces of contemporary choreographers like Maurice Béjart, John Neumeier, Mats Ek, William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Martha Graham, Roland Petit or Pina Bausch.

He was guest artist of the most important theatres and dance companies in the world like the Bolshoi Ballet, the Ballet Nacional de Cuba the Mariinsky Ballet, the English National Ballet, the La Scala Theatre Ballet, the Tokyo Ballet, the Ballet de Bordeaux, the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, the Berlin Staatsoper, the Opéra de Nice, among others.

From 2008 he initiated a serie of shows with his artistic project "José Martínez in Compañía" and the purpose to see the numerous Spanish soloists who carried out their career abroad come back to Spain. In these shows participated renowned dancers like Lucía Lacarra, Tamara Rojo, Alicia Amatrian or Iván Gil-Ortega, but he also gave an opportunity to dance again in their country to young less known Spanish dancers.

Since 2002, he has created 8 ballets and in 2009 he received the Prix Benois de la Danse as choreographer for Les Enfants du Paradis. The last one in 2010, entitled 'Marco Polo, the last Mission', was commissioned for the Ballet of Shangai, during the Shanghai World's Fair.

In December, 2010, he was named artistic director of the Spanish National Dance Company.

Awards

Filmography

References