Ruggero Dalla Santa

Ruggero was born in Venice, Italy. His father Giuseppe was a comic artist and his mother, Caterina, a writer. At the age of 8 he started practicing Judo, thus beginning his passion for Martial Arts. At the age of 14 Ruggero started practicing Karate and quickly broadened his own expertise by studying Taiji Quan, Xingyi Quan, San Da, Muai Thai and various other forms. In 2002 he was awarded a black belt in Karate and in 2003 he started teaching. In 2005 Ruggero successfully completed a 3 year degree in Oriental Languages (Chinese and Japanese) at the Ca' Foscari University in Venice. He has travelled extensively to both China and Japan. In 2006 Ruggero started taking dancing and singing lessons. Thanks to his previous physical experiences he quickly absorbed the basics of contemporary dance, salsa, bachata, jazz, hip hop and ballet. During a period of time in Beijing (China) in 2007, Ruggero finally found his way into acting. He joined the Beijing Acting Workshop and enrolled at the Beijing Film Academy for a 1 year acting course (after a summer course at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London). In 2008 he was accepted at East 15 Acting School to study World Performance. Thanks to this original course (the first of its kind), Ruggero has been able to put to good use both his physical abilities and his passion for acting and directing. He quickly showed a talent for Jing Ju (Beijing Opera), especially in the Wusheng (male warrior) role-type, and learned the basics of other non-western styles of performance such as Kecak, Balinese Dance-Drama, African Dance-Drama, Butoh Dance, Hula and Shadow Puppetry. In 2009 he took part in the International Workshop in Commedia dell'Arte taught by Antonio Fava, world-renowned Maestro. Ruggero also nurtures a passion for filmmaking. He has been in charge of filming and editing the numerous productions of his course at East 15, as well as creating trailers for various theatre productions and businesses. In 2011 he realised the short movie Flash together with Mario Sebastian Sabene. Flash entered the official selection of the Edge of the City Film Festival 2011. Since he left East 15, Ruggero has been working mainly on camera, being cast in lead roles in several short movies and web series.