Annabelle Lopez Ochoa

Biography

Annabelle is an award-winning and sought-after choreographer that has created works for 70 dance companies around the world. A versatile choreographer, Lopez Ochoa creates regularly within the dance field but also for theatre, opera, and musical theatre. Her wide-ranging body of work includes short conceptual pieces, full-length narratives , and dance films. The Colombian-Belgian Lopez Ochoa completed her dance education at the Royal Ballet School of Antwerp. After a 12-year long career in a number of European dance companies Annabelle decided in 2003 to focus solely on choreography. That same year she is hailed as the “rising star of the Dutch dance scene” (NRC newspaper) and only 7 years later the Temecula Performing Arts Examiner wrote: ”Ochoa is truly a masterful choreographer with an edge for what dance can and should be in this constantly changing industry”. She has been creating new works and new forms ever since and is also frequently invited to teach.

Annabelle is one of the world’s busiest choreographers. In 2006, she imagines a dance for the celebrated Dutch fashion designer Viktor & Rolf’s project at the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Between 2005 and 2015, as a  member of the Dance-Theatre collective “Fantasten” she successfully created physical theater plays, which have been performed in numerous theaters and festivals throughout the Netherlands. In 2016, the Jacob’s Pillow Summer School invited Lopez Ochoa to join the faculty as a guest contemporary choreographer, and classical choreographer in 2018. In 2019, Annabelle is appointed as the director of the Contemporary Classical Summer program of the School at Jacob’s Pillow. A position she will hold for 3 years.