Gelu Barbu was born in 1932, and died on February 17, 2016.

He was a Romanian dancer and choreographer.

He later nationalized to Spanish.

Gelu Barbu gained basic training at the School of Ballet of the National Opera of Bucharest with Anton Romanovski and Floria Capsali.

Following his joining the corps de ballet of the Opera in 1949, he went to Leningrad in the former Soviet Union, where he honed in academia Vaganova with other colleagues including Rudolf Nureyev.

Gelu Barbu graduated in 1955 with the master of Alexander Ivanovich Pushkin and returned to the company Opera Bucharest, where he was principal dancer with which he participated in the assembly and representation of notable works such as Swan lake and the nutcracker by Tchaikovsky.

During 1961, on a tour of the company by the German Democratic Republic, managed to cross into West Berlin and get political asylum.

Barbu worked in various countries in Western Europe, where he was principal dancer the Oslo Opera House the Opera House of Nuremberg and company Birgit Cullberg.

Gelu Barbu passed away at 84 yrs old.