Sasha Riva

Born in Fairfax County, Virginia in 1991, Sasha grew up in Italy.

Education
In 2008 he moves to Hamburg to study at the Ballet School of John Neumeier where he performed already solo roles in ballets by Neumeier like “Yondering”, “Vaslaw” and “Das Knaben Wunderhorn”. For his dance education, Sasha for several times took part in the Nederlands Dans Theater Summer Intensive Program.

Professional experience
In 2011, he joined the company of the Hamburg Ballet and John Neumeier creates different solo roles on him as the “Balloon Man” in “Liliom” one of the “3 Wise Men” in “WO I-VI”, “The Zaretsky” in “Tatjana”. Sasha performed several main roles and solos from the repertoire, among the most important: “The Poet” in the “Little Mermaid”, “Petrushka” in “Nijinsky”, “Sebastien” in “Preludes CV” and “Fratres”. During his time in Hamburg, Sasha started as well to create little pieces and J.Neumeier entrusted him with some choreographies for the National Youth Ballet of Hamburg. Since August 2016 he joined the Ballet of Geneva where he danced works by different choreographers like Cherkaoui, Lidberg, Verbruggen, Brumachon, Foniadakis, Skeels, Ossola, Lagraa, Mandafounis and Hoffmann also dancing solo parts. Among the most important, Natalia Horecna creates on him a leading role in “Return to Nothingness” and in 2018 Sasha makes his debut as Romeo at the Opera of Beijing in the ballet “Romeo and Juliet” by Joëlle Bouvier. In March 2019, Sasha Riva premiered the Masterpieces of the famous choreographer Jiri Kylian “Petite Mort” and “Bella Figura”. During his time with Hamburg Ballet and Geneva Ballet, he took part in many world tours. Currently Sasha participates in numerous international Gala and Festival in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, Kazakhstan, Latvia performing mostly some of his own creations and of his colleague Simone Repele, as well as pieces from other choreographers such as Marco Goecke and Claude Brumachon. Presently, Goecke is creating a new duet for Sasha and Simone which will be premiered soon. In 2020 Sasha Riva starts working as an independent artist, for example takes part in the new creation with Metamorphosis Dance (Iratxe Ansa & Igor Bacovich) and as guest main dancer for “Nichts” by M.Goecke with EBB. Also in 2020, together with Simone Repele they founded their own association “Riva & Repele danzarte”, investing in the creation of programs where they will dance with different artists, investing in the creation and representation of their works and other choreographers. For example, they choreographed and performed “Pulcinella”, a new creation on I. Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne commissioned to them by Daniele Cipriani Entertainment and the Pergolesi Spontini Foundation.

Awards
Sasha obtained the title of “Promising Young Talent” from the German magazine “Tanz” (2012) and different awards in Italy: the “International Award of Merit” (2017) – “Anfiteatro d’Oro for the art of dance” (2018) – the National Award “Sfera d’Oro per la Danza” (2019).