In 1987, Valentin Fanel received his diploma as classical dancer after 10 years of training at the School for Classical Ballet Liliana Cosi - Marinel Stefanescu in Reggio Emilia, Italy. At the same time, he completed his five-year study of applied arts at the "Istituto Statale d’Arte Gaetano Chierici" in Reggio Emilia (Italy). In 1989, he studied with various renowned teachers in Italy such as Vladimir Vassiliev, Boris Akimov, and Serge Golovin. That same year, he received an engagement with The Royal Ballet of Flanders under Robert Denvers. In the following two years, his repertory expanded to include many different productions in the classical and neoclassical style. He danced in: "Napoli", Chor. A. Bournonville, "The Four Temperaments", "Symphony in C", Chor. G. Balanchine, "Don Quixote", Chor. Rudolf Nurejew, "La Sylphide", Chor. F. Flindt, "Symphony in D", Chor. Jiri Kylian.
In 1991, he became solo dancer at the Staatstheater Mainz, where he worked until 1998. During this period, he danced a large number of main roles such as Albrecht in Giselle, Basilio in Don Quixote, Siegfried in Swan Lake, Prinz Phillip in Sleeping Beauty, the cosair in Le Corsaire.
In 1993, he participated in the 7th International Ballet Competition in Moscow at the Bolschoi Theater, where he received a diploma as finalist.
As part of the “Young Choreographers” series at the Staatstheater Mainz, he choreographed three ballet pieces in 1996 / 97 / 98. In 1998, he ended his career as a dancer and dedicated himself to his second passion – painting.
After five years of creative work, his first exhibitions was in 2004, “Ein anderer Blick auf den Sport” (A Different Perspective on Sports) at the House of Sports “DSOB” in Frankfurt am Main. In 2005, the German Sport University Cologne commissioned a large piece from him. In 2006 he showed "Ein anderer Blick auf den Sport" at the German Sport University Cologne. In 2007: master exhibition at the Gmünder Ersatzkasse GEK Schwäbisch Gmünd. The series of 12 paintings exhibited here for the first time, explored the art of sign language. Shortly afterwards, he had an exhibition in Frankfurt at the SHs Treuhand GmbH. In 2005, he began working with digital photography, stage and ballet photography, as well as photo portraits. He photographed numerous ballet productions of the Royal Ballet of Flanders in Antwerp and thereby gained enough experience to begin working professionally as a photographer for theater and dance. Since 2010, he has worked as the main photographer for the HFMDK Frankfurt and since continuously photographed all productions by the dance department. Currently he is working as a freelance photographer in all fields.
Photo-documentation: 3. Dance Education Biennale 2012 Frankfurt am Main