Carlos Lopez

Photo: Hanna Bass.

Carlos Lopez is currently a Director of Repertoire with American Ballet Theatre.  He began his professional career at the Victor Ullate Ballet in his native country of Spain where he danced for ten years, six of them as principal dancer. His repertory included leading roles in Don Quixote, Giselle, Theme and Variations, Allegro Brillante, Paquita, Les Sylphides, and ballets by Maurice Bejart, Rudi Van Dantzig, Nils Christe, Micha van Hoecke, and Hans Van Manen. With this company he toured to Argentina, Belgium, Cuba, England, Germany, Italy and the United States.

Lopez joined American Ballet Theatre in 2001 and was promoted to Soloist in 2003. His repertoire with ABT included Iago in Othello, the Bronze Idol in La Bayadère, Mercutio and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet, the Nutcracker-Prince in The Nutcracker, Birbanto in Le Corsaire, Puck in The Dream, Benno in Swan Lake, the second sailor in Fancy Free, Alain in La Fille mal gardée, Eros in Sylvia, the Lead Pontevedrian dancer in The Merry Widow, the peasant pas de deux in Giselle, the Bluebird in The Sleeping Beauty, the Joker in Jeu de Cartes, the Profiteer in The Green Table, and roles in Offenbach in the Underworld, Petite Mort, Sinfonietta, Dark Elegies, In the Upper Room, Gong, Company B, Seven Sonatas, Symphonic Variations, Glow–Stop, Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison and workwithinwork.

In 1996, he won the Silver Medal at the Paris International Ballet Competition and in 2004 was awarded the Les Etoiles de Ballet 2000 Prize in Cannes.

As a guest artist, Lopez has performed with the National Ballet of Georgia, National Ballet of Cuba, Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rico, and Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, among others.  He has appeared in the World Stars Gala in Budapest, the Miami International Ballet Festival, Stars of the 21st Century in Toronto and the Havana International Ballet Festival.

Lopez is an ABT Certified Teacher in Pre-Primary through Level 7 of the ABT National Training Curriculum.  He joined the faculty of ABT Studio Company in 2013 and was appointed ABT Studio Company Director of Repertoire in September 2014. During this time, he participated in ABT and Royal Ballet School Exchanges in London and was a Mentor at YoungArts Miami.

Lopez was appointed Director of Repertoire at American Ballet Theatre in August 2016. He has work closely with Twyla Tharp, Alexei Ratmansky, Wayne McGregor, Christopher Wheeldon, Jessica Lang, Cathy Marston, Benjamin Millepied, Darrell Grand Moultrie, and Sonya Tayeh. During this time, Lopez has been invited to teach at Harvard University, Ballet West, Boston Ballet, and Compañia Nacional de Danza of Spain. Lopez serves as Artistic Coordinator of the ABT Summer Intensive in California and, since 2018, has choreographed his first two works, Painting Stories and Raíces, for the Saint Paul’s School Dance Company.

In March 2020, during the “stay at home” order for the Covid-19 pandemic, Lopez became a pioneer in teaching ballet classes online, being recognized by press around the world including The New York Times, The New Yorker, National Geographic and the Chicago Tribune. He was included among other creators and personalities in the Apple campaign “Creativity Goes On.”