For Nicolo Fonte, dance lives in the moment — the present. It is when the dancer suspends belief in worldly reality and perhaps reveals a deeper meaning, a hidden truth. Dance, in his view, is inseparable from metaphor: the outward, physical manifestation of our inner life and our collective imagination.
A first-generation American whose parents emigrated to the US from Argentina, Fonte grew up in Brooklyn and began dancing at the age of 14. He studied at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York, San Francisco Ballet, and the School of American Ballet and earned a BFA from SUNY Purchase. His performing career took him from Peridance in New York City to Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and ultimately to Nacho Duato’s Compañia Nacional de Danza in Madrid.
Fonte didn’t set out to become a choreographer — he discovered his passion through a required choreography class during his BFA studies, which planted a seed he couldn’t ignore. In 2000, he retired from performing to devote himself fully to his choreographic career.
Fonte received a Choo San Goh Award for Almost Tango, his 2002 choreography for Pacific Northwest Ballet. Almost Tango was later voted one of Dance Europe’s “Best Premieres” when restaged for The Australian Ballet in 2004. His first full-length work, Re: Tchaikovsky, created for The Gothenburg Ballet in 2005, appeared on the “Best of 2005” lists of both Ballett-Tanz and Dance Europe.
Having created over 60 works for companies spanning the globe, Fonte’s choreography has been performed by Dutch National Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Houston Ballet, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, and BalletX, among many others. He is recognized for a singular movement language that fuses classical ballet with a boldly contemporary aesthetic.