Since the 2025/26 season, Goyo Montero, one of the most distinguished ballet directors and choreographers of his generation, has been leading the Staatsballett Hannover. From 2008 to 2025 he directed the ballet of the Staatstheater Nürnberg, which he shaped over 17 years into an internationally renowned and award-winning ensemble. Furthermore, he is closely connected to Acosta Danza as its resident choreographer and has also created works for companies such as The Royal Ballet London, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, the Finnish National Ballet, the Ballet of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the São Paulo Companhia de Dança, the Perm Opera Ballet/Diana Vishneva Context Festival, the Ballet Nacional de Sodre in Uruguay, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Ballet Nacional de Cuba or the Ankara State Ballet. Goyo Montero has a long-standing relationship with the Prix de Lausanne: as a regular member of the jury, choreographer and artistic director of two choreographic projects in 2018 and 2023.

Born in Madrid in 1975, Goyo Montero initially trained with Carmen Roche and at the Royal Conservatory of Professional Dance in Madrid. He completed his training at the Cuban National Ballet School under the direction of Alicia Alonso. His extensive career as a dancer began at the age of 17 in the English National Ballet and continued later as a soloist at the Leipziger Ballett, in the ballet of Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, in the Royal Ballet of Flanders and as first soloist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

His honours as a dancer include the Prix de Lausanne in 1994 and the Grand Prix and Gold Medal of the Luxembourg International Dance Competition in 1996. Critics from the Dance Europe Magazine nominated him as “Best Dancer” of the 2003/04 season. As a dancer and as a choreographer, he was awarded the Premio Nacional de Danza by the Spanish Ministry of Culture. Further awards for his choreographic work include the Villa de Madrid Prize, the 1st prize in the Ibero-American Choreography Competition, the Villanueva Prize (awarded by the UNEAC Association of Cuban Authors and Journalists), the Teatro de Madrid Prize, the Cultural Award of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce of Middle Franconia, and the Bavarian Culture Prize in 2014. In 2018 the ballet of the Staatstheater Nürnberg under Goyo Montero’s direction received the German Dance Award for “Outstanding Developments in Dance.” In the same year, critics of Dance Europe named him “Best Ballet Director.” This was followed by two of Bavaria’s highest cultural honours: in 2023, the Pro meritis scientiae et litterarum prize from the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts, which recognises individuals for outstanding services to science and the arts, and in 2024, the Bavarian Order of Merit.