Carlos Pinillos was born in Madrid in November 1977. At the age of five he begins his ballet training with Susana Arnal. Two years later, Victor Ullate offers him a scholarship to join his school to study with other talents such as Angel Corella, Lucia Lacarra o Tamara Rojo.

Throughout his career, other ballet masters beside Victor Ullate were very important in building up Carlos as an artist. Alain Baldini, José Pares, Aurora Bosch o Attilio Labis are some of them.

In 1998, Carlos was the recipient of the 1 st Prize of the International Ballet Competition of Vienna.

In 1995, he begins his path as professional dancer with the Ballet of Victor Ullate and in 2000 he becomes Principal Dancer. In 2001, Mark Jonkers offered Carlos a principal contract to join the National Ballet of Portugal, a position which he maintained under the direction of Mehmet Balkan and to the present day.

In his classical repertoire we find ballets such as “Giselle” from José Pares, “Romeo and Juliet” from Cranko, “ Swan Lake” and “Lady of Camelia” from Mehmet Balkan, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” from Spoerli, “The Firebird” from U. Scholz and “D. Quixote” from Ullate, where the choreographer risked creating for Carlos a male version of Cupid, which was, for some critics, the magic ingredient for the success of this particular version.

“Allegro Brillante”, “Theme and Variations”, “Apollo” and “Who Cares” make his Balanchine repertoire and from Van Manen he danced “In the Future”, “In and Out”, “Gro§e Függe”, “Hammerklavier”, “Solo”, “Kammerballet” and “Five Tangos”.

He also performed ballets from other choreographers as Victor Orive, Micha van Hoecke, Niels Christie, Robert North, Kevin O ’Day, Mauro Bigonzetti, Jiri Kylian or Nacho Duato. But is with the creation of “Pedro e Inês” in 2003 that Olga Roriz becomes an important reference in his career.

n the year 2000, he performed "Giselle" with Arena di Verona. In 2008/9 he was guest artist with Prague State Opera for "Swan Lake", where he performed with Daria Klimentová and Ana Lacerda. In 2009, he performed "Carmina Burana" with Opéra de Limoges and in 2012 he was invited to Istanbul State Opera and Ballet to perform Don Quijote.

Anna Kisselgoff, from the newspaper "The New York Times", once wrote about Carlos referring to him as “an interesting mix of pure technique and strong contact with the audience". Dance Europe critic, January 2012: "Carlos Pinillos...and his technique was as sparkling as ever. ...and his partnering was exceptional..."