Morphoses Premieres WITHIN (LABYRINTH WITHIN) at The Joyce Theater, 11/7-11

LOURDES LOPEZ (DIRECTOR OF MORPHOSES AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF MIAMI CITY BALLET) a native of Havana, studied dance in Miami until the age of ten, when she came to New York to study first at the Joffrey School and then at the School of American Ballet. She joined New York City Ballet at the age of 16 and was ultimately promoted to principal dancer. Lopez danced a wide range of the NYCB repertory, including many of Balanchine's core works, and several Robbins ballets, including "Brandenburg," in a role she created. After retiring from the stage, Lopez worked with WNBC as an on-air cultural arts reporter. One of her assignments was to go to Cuba to report on the nation's emerging cultural climate; her segments were aired on WNBC during the Pope's visit to Cuba. Lopez then took the position of Director of Student Placement, Student Evaluation, and Curriculum Planning for Ballet Academy East, a dance school in New York City where she was also a full-time senior faculty member. In 2002, Lopez became the Executive Director of The George Balanchine Foundation, which works to educate the public about dance and to further the art of ballet, with a special emphasis on the work and achievements of George Balanchine. In this position, she oversaw the 2004 Balanchine Centennial Celebration, a worldwide festival honoring the choreographer and his legacy. Among the events that year was the symposium "Balanchine: Past, Present and Future," which was held in St. Petersburg, Russia, and which was a collaboration among the Maryinsky Theater, the Hermitage Museum, and the George Balanchine Foundation. Lopez is also a founder of the Cuban Artists Fund, a non-profit organization whose mission is to support independent, emerging Cuban and Cuban-American artists in the performing, visual, music, and literary arts and is featured in Famous Hispanic Americans (1996), published by Cobblehill Books, a division of Dutton. Last year, she was honored, along with a number of other former NYCB principal female dancers with the 2011 Jerome Robbins Award.

Photo Credit: Martin Nisser

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