Miami City Ballet is the largest South Florida arts organization, reaching an annual audience of over 125,000 in four Florida Counties. It includes a ballet school with over 1500 students and adults.
Lopez was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1958 and raised in Miami by her parents along with two sisters. At the age of eleven she received a full scholarship to train at the School of American Ballet, the official school of the New York City Ballet. At fourteen, she moved to New York permanently to devote herself to full-time studies at the School of American Ballet, and shortly after her sixteenth birthday, she joined the corps de ballet of New York City Ballet in 1974. She was promoted to soloist in 1981 and principal dancer in 1984 and retired at age 39 in 1997.[2][3]
As a soloist and principal dancer with New York City Ballet, she danced for two legends of the art form, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, performing countless featured roles, including Violin Concerto, Firebird, The Prodigal Son, Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2[4], Serenade, Liebeslieder Walzer, Divertimento No. 15, and Agon. Lopez's great interest in children also found her writing and contributing to many of the company's family matinee series.
Upon retirement in 1997, Lopez joined WNBC-TV in New York as a cultural arts reporter, writing and producing feature segments on the arts, artists and arts education. She was also a full-time senior faculty member and director of student placement, student evaluation and curriculum planning at New York's Ballet Academy East. She served on the dance faculty of Barnard College and guest taught at numerous dance institutions and festivals in the United States. She even appeared with Jock Soto in some Sesame Street segments such as demonstrating cooperation with Elmo and Zoe.
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, whom she spent her career dancing with.
In 2007, Lopez co-founded Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company with Christopher Wheeldon serving as its executive director. Morphoses is a dance company aiming to revitalize dance through innovative collaborations with important artists from the worlds of music, visual arts, design, film and fashion; and by inviting younger and broader audiences to engage in and actively experience dance. Lopez also received an award from the American Immigration Law Foundation honoring Cuban Americans for their accomplishments and contributions to American society.
Lopez co-founded The Cuban Artists Fund,[5] together with community cultural leaders. The fund supports Cuban and Cuban-American artists to achieve their artistic goals, while ensuring their economic freedom.[6]
Following a five-month search, in September 2012, an 11-member committee chose Lopez, among 35 candidates considered,[7] to be the artistic director of the Miami City Ballet.[8] Lopez says "Dance is so much, especially where I came from, about women. We're the thing in the front. Yet in terms of heading organizations, women haven't had a very visible position within a dance company. I don't know why that is. But I don't wake up in the morning and think I'm the only woman. I wake up in the morning and think, what am I going to do for Miami City Ballet next year?"[7]
In 2014, Lopez was elected to serve on the Ford Foundation’s board of trustees, marking the first time an artist was elected to serve on its board. She is a member of The Kennedy Center Honors artist committee. In 2011, she received the prestigious Jerome Robbins Award for her years in dance. She has also served as a dance panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, and has received numerous Hispanic Heritage awards.
In 2017, Lopez was named one of "The Most Influential People in Dance Today" by Dance Magazine and has developed Miami City Ballet into one of the most diverse companies in the world today.[7]
Personal life
In 1987, Lopez married Lionel Saporta.[9] She is now married to George Skouras.[3] They live in Miami Beach and have two children, Adriel Saporta and Calliste Skouras.
^Cohen, Selma Jeanne; Dorris, George; Kelly, Thomas F.; Dance Perspectives Foundation, eds. (2004). International encyclopedia of dance: a project of Dance Perspectives Foundation. New York Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN978-0-19-517369-7.
^Tobar, Cynthia (2009). "Between The Lines: Arte Cubano: A Reference Guide to Cuban Art Resources at the New York Public Library". Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America. 28 (2): 67–71. doi:10.1086/adx.28.2.27949527. ISSN0730-7187. JSTOR27949527. S2CID193318312.
