Miami City Ballet’s Lourdes López: ‘Success is to be happy in what you do’
.jpg "Lourdes López with MCB dancers in a rehearsal for George Balanchine’s “Jewels.”")
Lourdes López, who has spent more than a half century in the dance world, can look back at a career filled with achievement, accolades and above all, fulfillment — the true definition of success, she says.
Her career as company artistic director of Miami City Ballet — one of South Florida’s largest arts organizations, which reaches an annual audience of more than 125,000 — follows a storied career with the New York City Ballet. Outside of her specialty, she has also had important roles in the arts world.
These are some reasons why she’s receiving this year’s lifetime achievement award from the International Ballet Festival of Miami.
“A Life for Dance” (“Una Vida para la Danza”), as the prestigious award is called, has been presented each year since 1998. López is the 25th person, and the 11th woman, to be an honoree. She’s also the fourth Cuban-born winner; the others were Alberto Alonso in 2006, Carlos Gacio in 2016, and Pedro Pablo Peña, founder of the IBFM and honored posthumously in 2018.
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López is now being honored in the region where she was raised.
She was born in Havana in 1958, and her family emigrated to the United States the following year. She grew up in Miami.
López started ballet lessons at age 6, and five years later, she received a full scholarship to the School of American Ballet in New York.
At 16, López joined the ballet corps of the New York City Ballet, became principal dancer in 1984, and won acclaim for her performances in works created and choreographed by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins.
After her retirement as a dancer, López’s career in the arts continued — as a cultural reporter, administrator and teacher, and as the executive director of the George Balanchine Foundation. She is also a member of the board of trustees of the Ford Foundation.
In 2007, she and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon collaborated to create the innovative ballet company Morphoses.
In 2012, she returned to Miami, succeeding Edward Villella as Miami City Ballet’s artistic director. (Villella was also honored by IBFM, in 2004.) López’s management of the company quickly won renown; her honors include the prestigious Dance Magazine Award in 2018.
What follows is an excerpt of a conversation with the dancer:
Q: How did the news of the “A Life for Dance” award make you feel?
A: It was very moving. My mom always wrote to me saying, “Lourdita, put Cuba’s name up.” So I grew up Cuban. And knowing that the award comes from a festival that has so much history among Cubans here in Miami made me feel: “I’m a Cuban receiving an award!” Add to that the fact that I’m entering my 10th year with the company and that this season we’re coming back from the pandemic, and you can say those three things made it much more special.
Q: Being an artist was always the only option for you?
A: No. I started taking ballet classes because of some medical problems I had with my legs. When I was young, I loved being around children, and at some point, I thought I wanted to be a child psychologist. My dad wanted me to go to the university, but I have no regrets about the career I chose because I can say that from a very young age, I found something that really fills my soul.
Q: Do you remember the first time you saw a dance performance?
A: Yes. It was at the Miami-Dade County Auditorium, where there was a dance festival that visited Miami once or twice a year. Because we were migrants and poor, my mom would buy a ticket, hide it in the program, and we would enter like... three of us. I remember seeing Lydia Díaz Cruz in “The Dying Swan,” and Carla Fracci and Lupe Serrano [both are also recipients of the IBFM’s A Life for Dance Award] among many other great dancers.
Q: What made you stop dancing?
A: The respect I have for art. I’m a person who always tries to be realistic. I looked in the mirror, and my eyes saw me. I’ve never been blind. I looked at myself and recognized what I was missing, what I needed, and what wasn’t right. When I was about 38, I began to realize that there were pieces that I wasn’t dancing the way they should be danced, and I said to myself, “no more... I prefer to retire with dignity.” So I finished the season and didn’t come back.
But the truth is that I danced more than I ever thought. I danced in a company that I never thought of dancing in my life. I never thought I would be a soloist, and I never thought I would become a principal. For me, it was always getting up every day and working, but I didn’t have those goals in mind. It wasn’t an easy thing to make the decision to stop dancing, but maybe that’s why it was easier for me than it was for others.
Q: What personal characteristic has been of most help to you in your career?
A: What has helped me in my career is something my parents taught me, and that’s a commitment to the job: “You have to put one foot in front of the other.” “You can’t take it for granted that someone is going to give you something.” All those things they tell you. And my parents were a great example because they worked for many years.
Q: What is your definition of success?
A: Success is to be happy in what you do. It’s not the money. It’s not the material things. It’s being able to say, “I’m doing what I love, what I like, what I want,” because only then the effort, time, and energy you invest in what you do will not shock you too much.
Q: What achievement has made you feel most proud?
A: In my personal life, my two daughters, I swear. The first one was born while I was dancing, and she changed my way of thinking, even my way of dancing. Children make you see the world differently. In my career, that’s something I can’t answer because every single thing I’ve done has a different meaning. But there is something that is never mentioned and of which I am very proud. It is to have been the first and only Latina principal dancer — until today — of the New York City Ballet. Latina and Cuban.
Q: And... Cuba? (The conversation had then turned toward the current situation there.)
A: The unprecedented wave of protests taking place in Cuba is something powerful. The Cuban people are speaking out against what has been a lack of human rights for a long time. And about a government that has not heard their cries for change. Everyone has the right to be heard, live their lives without fear of expressing themselves, and freely determine their own future. As a Cuban and an artist, I stand in solidarity with the Cuban people and support their struggle for change.
Q: Finally, what is your recommendation to a young artist interested in making a career in dance?
A: My advice would be to take every day as it comes. And by that, I mean two things. One is that what happens today, good and bad, is likely not to be that important in five years. The second is that life is not going to be a straight shot. Life is up and down, next to and around. So the important thing is to be present every day. The important thing is to stay present.
“A Life for Dance” award will be presented to López on Saturday at the start of the IBFM Closing Gala of the Stars at the Fillmore Miami Beach. The performances, which wind up Sunday, Aug. 15, can also be viewed through the IBFM website: https://www.internationalballetfestival.org/
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This story was originally published August 13, 2021 at 12:00 AM.