TOMAŽ RODE

Tomaz Rode comes from Slovenia, where he graduated in 1987 from the Music and Ballet School in Ljubljana. Later, he perfected with Konstatin Sergejev, Natalia Dudinskaja and Zinnia Zubkovskaja. After graduating he was a member of the Ballet of Slovenian National Theatre Opera and Ballet Ljubljana in the summer of 1992 he was invited to a tour in Italy, where he performed Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake and Franz in Coppelia in Rome, Naples, Ancona, and Trevi. In 1992 he joined a Ballet of the Theatre at Gaertnerplatz in Munich when directed by Guenther Pick. In 1993 he won the gold medal and Grand Prix at the Competition of young Slovenian ballet dancers. In 1997 he returned to Ljubljana where he became also the artistic director of Ballet of the Slovenian National Theatre Ljubljana. In 1998 he received an important Slovenian artistic award for the part of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (choreography by Istvan Herzog) and for the role of Franz in Coppelia at Montmartre (Choreography by Youri Vamosh). In 2001 he took part at the world celebration of the 100 anniversary of choreographer Kurt Jooss in his ballet The Green Table within the role of Death, one of the most challenging creations of the 20th century. From then on he was working as a freelance artist. During his career, he danced prominent roles in the classical and contemporary ballet repertoire. Since 2008 he is working also in the field of Ballet education. Since 2009 he is president of the Association of Ballet Artists of Slovenia, the main organisation in the field of Ballet art in Slovenia, and from 2014 artistic director of the Slovenian youth ballet company.