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 Shinshokan Dance Magazine thus recognized him has one of the best dancers of the era in the world.

Martínez studied dance with Pilar Molina in Cartagena, followed by the École supérieure de danse de Cannes Rosella Hightower. In 1987 he received the Prix de Lausanne and entered the Paris Opera Ballet School, joining 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 danced the major classical ballets such as Swan Lake, Giselle, Don Quixote, La Bayadère, The Sleeping Beauty, Raymonda, Paquita, The Nutcracker, La Sylphide, Romeo and Juliet, as well as neoclassical ballets by Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Kenneth MacMillan, Yury Grigorovich, Antony Tudor, Serge Lifar, Harald Lander, John Cranko, among others. Martínez also danced contemporary pieces by Maurice Béjart, John Neumeier, Mats Ek, William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Martha Graham, Roland Petit, and Pina Bausch.

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