Antonio Castilla is returning to San Francisco Ballet, where he danced from 1988 to 1995, including three years as Principal Dancer, and where he also began his teaching career for seven years under the guidance of Lola de Avila and Aurora Bosch. He comes back to the Bay Area from English National Ballet, which he joined in 2013, and where he currently serves as one of the company’s repetiteurs. Castilla trained at Brussels Conservatoire Royal de la Monnaie under José Pares; María de Avila Estudio; Zaragoza with María de Avila, Cristina Miñana, and Lola de Avila; National Ballet of Spain with Azari Plisetsky, and in New York with David Howard and Stanley Williams. He was a principal dancer with Ballet de Zaragoza, Ballet Clásico Nacional de España, and San Francisco Ballet. At English National Ballet, he also choreographed My First Ballet: Swan Lake (2018) in collaboration with English National Ballet School and My First Ballet: Sleeping Beauty (2019). Castilla joined the Royal Ballet School’s White Lodge and has worked as a guest teacher with Northern Ballet and in summer schools in Spain and Italy. As a choreographer his work has been seen with the Lawrence Pech Dance Company (San Francisco), San Francisco Ballet School, Central School of Ballet, and the Royal Ballet School. Castilla also won the Gold Medal and the Grand Prix in Couples at the 1986 Paris International Ballet Competition.