Marcelino Libao is a professional ballet dancer, born and raised in Manila, Philippines. Trained under Raul Sauz and Sofia Zobel-Elizalde at Steps Dance Studio. He left Philippines at the age of 15 to compete at the prestigious Prix de Lausanne back in 2008, making him the first Filipino to ever join the competition and making it to the finals. After being offered to different professional ballet schools in the world, he decided to take the head of the Jury’s offer, John Neumeier, who is the artistic director and resident choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet, founder & director of the Hamburg Ballet School, the founder & former artistic director of the German National Youth Ballet. After completing his professional studies and graduating with a degree in dance, he eventually joined the Hamburg Ballet and has been dancing with the company since August 2010 - present. He debuted in many roles from the Hamburg Ballet’s repertoire in Neumeier works such as The Golden Slave & Faun in “Nijinsky”, Danse Siamoise in “Le Pavillion D’Armide”, the Wild Warrior in “Othello”, Fritz in “The Nutcracker”, Benvolio in “Romeo & Juliet”, and many solo roles in Neumeier’s symphonic works. He also worked with other choreographers repertoire, such as the pas de six in Bournonville’s “Napoli”, the Gypsy King in Nureyev’s “Don Quixote”, and the Brick Boy in Robbins’ “Dances at a Gathering” just to name a few. Having been a part of John Neumeier’s most recent works in the past decade, Marcelino developed a huge interest in choreography himself and up to this day has choreographed 10 works for the Hamburg Ballet. His choreographies has reached world wide acclaim when Lisa Macuja has purchased his choreography “Paloma Muerta” to be a part of Ballet Manila’s repertoire in 2019. And just recently, his choreography “Unknown Epoch” that featured a Catalonian dancer, has been published and made its way to a Catalonian TV network and other tv networks across Spain. Marcelino is also an advocate to helping others in need and in 2017, he launched a project named STEPPING FORWARD, that focuses on sharing the art form of dance thru classes, workshops, and performances — and all its proceeds go directly to foundations that he supports, like Tuloy Foundation, CENTEX, and the Steps Scholarship Foundation