António Casalinho

António Casalinho was born in Leiria, Portugal. He began his ballet training at the age of eight at the Conservatório Internacional de Ballet e Dança Annarella Sanchez, which follows the Cuban training methodology. His studies were further enriched through work with numerous guest teachers from the Vaganova and French schools. From June 2020 to July 2021, he deepened his knowledge of the 19th- and 20th-century classical repertoire under Maina Gielgud, performing her stagings of La Sylphide (Act II) as well as full-length productions of Don Quixote, Giselle and Swan Lake.

In the 2021/22 season, he was engaged as a Demi-Soloist at the Bavarian State Ballet. In 2023, he was promoted to Soloist, and in 2024 to Principal Dancer. Starting with the 2025/26 season, he joined the Vienna State Ballet as a Principal Dancer.

His repertoire includes numerous leading roles in full-length ballets, such as in John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet and Onegin, Pierre Lacotte’s La Sylphide, Roland Petit’s Coppélia, John Neumeier’s A Midsummer Night's Dream as well as Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella. He has also danced in works by Patrice Bart, Marco Goecke, Nacho Duato, Andrey Kaydanovskiy, Sol León & Paul Lightfoot and Alexei Ratmansky.

António Casalinho has won numerous prizes at international ballet competitions, including the Grand Prix Award in the Junior category (2016) and Senior category (2018) at the Youth America Grand Prix, the Grand Prix at the Beijing International Ballet Competition (2019), the Gold Medal and Contemporary Dance Award at the Prix de Lausanne (2021), and the Leonide Massine Award as Dancer of the Year (2022).

He has also performed extensively as a guest artist and gala participant worldwide, including appearances in Cuba, England, France, Portugal, Spain and the USA.