Special performance

For the fourth edition of the Bologna Ballet Competition, the stage lights up with Triple Bill by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, an evening of international dance presented by the Serbian National Theatre Ballet of Novi Sad, on October 23 at 20:30h.  

Triple Bill by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa 

DELUSIONAL BEAUTY

music: Christen Lien, Aaron Martin, Zoe Keating

costume design: Mark Zappone

light design: Jozef Walls

This piece draws its inspiration from the surrealist world of Salvador Dalí, and in particular his painting “La femme à la tête de fleurs” from 1935. Paintings have always been a profound source of inspiration for Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. She believes that each painting carries a soul of its own. Through dance, she seeks to awaken that soul: to release the figures from their frozen stillness and allow them to breathe, transform, and exist within the fleeting, evanescent realm of movement.

LA PLUIE

music: Johan Sebastian Bach, Goldberg variations

costumes and light design: Annabelle Lopez Ochoa

“La Pluie” is the final section of a larger performance titled “Black Rain”, which Annabelle Lopez Ochoa created in 2005 for the Geneva Ballet. The work as a whole reflects on the devastation of war, but in this closing duet brings the sense of renewal. Rain becomes a quiet force of transformation, washing away the traces of destruction and violence until what remains is the connection between two individuals. In that intimacy lies the possibility of love, and with it, the fragile yet profound hope for a new beginning.

LINEA RECTA

music: Eric Vaarzon Morel

costume design: Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, in collaboration with Danielle Truss

light design: Jozef Walls after Mark Mazzola

“Linea Recta” is an earthy, powerful, and resonant work that delves into a striking paradox within flamenco: the conspicuous absence of physical partnering. While honoring the genre’s integrity and its hallmark intensity, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa reimagines its language through an original and explosive movement vocabulary—one that dares to introduce partnership as both a physical and emotional force, expanding the tradition without losing its soul.

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa is a prolific, award-winning, and sought-after choreographer that has created more than a hundred ballets for more than 90 dance companies around the world such as the Dutch National Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, English National Ballet, Gothenborg Ballet, Hong Kong Ballet, Queensland Ballet, Paris Opera Junior Company, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Miami City Ballet and New York City Ballet, to name a few. Since 2019, Annabelle is the program director of the Contemporary Ballet Summer program of the School at Jacob’s Pillow. Annabelle Lopez Ochoa has been recognized with multiple choreographic prizes such the Hannover choreographic competition and the Bornem choreographers’ contest. She is also the recipient of multiple awards such as the UK Dance Award for Best Classical Ballet, Villanueva Award, South Bank Sky Arts Award, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award and in 2025 she received the Dance Lab NY honors. Annabelle is one of the world’s busiest choreographers (a quote by Wendy Peron in Dance Magazine 2016) as well as one of the very few female choreographers who excels in narrative ballets. She has successfully created 15 narrative ballets to date such as “FRIDA”, “Coco Chanel, the life of a fashion icon”, “Doña Peron”, “Callas, La Divina”, “A Streetcar named desire.” In March 2026, she premiered a brand-new narrative ballet titled “Gentleman Jack” for the Northern Ballet, and received the Fedora Van Cleef & Arpels Dance Prize Award.