Giovanni Rotolo

Biography

Born in Italy, Giovanni Rotolo enrolled at the age of 14 at the Accademia Internazionale Coreutica in Florence, from which he graduated in 2011, under the tutelage of Elisabetta Hertel. In August and September 2010, he performed with the West Australian Ballet in Perth (led by the artistic director Ivan Cavallari) in Marcia Haydée’s production of The Sleeping Beauty. He has garnered awards in a number of competitions in Italy and elsewhere, including third prizes in the junior classical category at the Rieti Danza 2008 festival and in the senior contemporary category at the Settimana Internazionale della Danza Spoleto 2011 competition, and the bronze medal in the senior category at the World Ballet Competition in Orlando, USA.

In August 2011, Giovanni joined the Czech National Ballet, led by the artistic director Petr Zuska. Two years later, he was named a demi-soloist, and in 2016 a first soloist.

Giovanni is a talented young artist of extraordinary technical qualities and immense spiritual insight, a dancer possessing charisma and stage presence. He harbours charm, nobleness, Italian mettle, and serves as an Ancient ideal of masculine beauty, excelling in classical ballet, as well as any other style and genre of the contemporary dance theatre.

The National Theatre audience have had the opportunity to see him in the productions of In the Middle Somewhat Elevated (Forsythe), Theme and Variations and Serenade (Balanchine), Fancy Free (Robbins) and Rooster (Bruce). He has performed as the Prince in The Sleeping Beauty and Solor in La Bayadère (both adapted by Javier Torres), Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, Toník in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the Lover in The Little Mermaid (both created by Jan Kodet),Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, the Father in The Nutcracker and the Cuddly Mouse, Father in Le sacre du printemps, Colas in La Fille mal gardée, the lead roles in Petr Zuska’s Tremble and Solo for the Two of Us. He has also danced the baritone solo in Jiří Kylián’s Field Mass, appeared in Uwe Scholz’s Symphony No. 7 in A major, Jacopo Godani’s Reflections on the Fate of Human Form, Radu Poliktaru’s Rain and Mauro Bigonzetti’s Vertigo.

In 2017, he received the Director of the National Theatre Prize for young artists up to the age of 35.