Holly Handman-Lopez

Assistant Professor of Dance Holly Handman-Lopez has been awarded a 2022 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for Choreography. Her prize-winning work was created during the pandemic and performed by Oberlin College students. This is Holly's second such prize from the Ohio Arts Council.

Holly Handman-Lopez joined the Labodanse research team to help craft the second phase of a visual reality/dance experiment initially conducted at the Tate Modern. Handman-Lopez was one of two choreographer/dancers on the project and worked with the team at the National Scientific Research Center in Paris, France.

Professor of Theater Matthew Wright and Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Holly Handman-Lopez collaborated on 33 1/3, a new musical, at Dobama Theater in Cleveland. Wright directed and Handman-Lopez choreographed 33 1/3, which won the Playwrights Guild of Canada Stage West Pechet Family’s Best New Musical Award. This world premiere production ran from June 27 to July 14, 2019.

Holly Handman-Lopez, visiting assistant professor of dance, performed an evening of original choreography with her collaborator, poet Esther Dischereit, on October 17, 2017, at Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa. The pair were hosted by the The International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

Holly Handman-Lopez, visiting assistant professor of dance, along with Bobby Wesner, visiting instructor of dance, produced Oberlin Dance Intensive, a week of intensive dancing and sharing for high school students. Handman-Lopez and Wesner also performed their duet Eleven Years in at the Akron Fringe Festival.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Holly Handman-Lopez was acknowledged for Superior Achievement by the Cleveland Critics Circle 2016 Theater Awards for her choreography of Mr. Burns at Cleveland Public Theatre. The production was directed by Matthew Wright.

Professor of Dance and Department Chair Ann Cooper Albright and Assistant Professor of Dance Holly Handman-Lopez each received Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council. The Dance Department and Dance Diaspora, directed by Artist in Residence Adenike Sharpley, were recognized by the Dance Department Awards and Recognition for their ongoing service to the Oberlin community. In addition, the community-based programs Girls and Boys in Motion and Dance Diaspora were the focus of an article in the May edition of Dance Magazine entitled “Dance to Give Back.”

Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Holly Handman-Lopez has received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in Choreography for her evening-length dance and theater piece, "The Only Way," and "eleven years in," her duet with Bobby Wesner. "The Only Way" premiered in Oberlin in 2015, and "eleven years in" premiered in Oberlin in 2014 and has since been presented at numerous venues across the U.S.

Holly Handman-Lopez, visiting assistant professor of dance, danced in the Where Were We: on intimacy, body, writing festival in Aarhus, Denmark, December 3 and 5 with her Berlin-based collaborators: Poet Esther Dischereit, DJ Ipek, and Percussionist Ray Kaczyski. The festival featured artists from Turkey and France, as well as Germany, Denmark, and the U.S.

Holly Handman-Lopez, visiting assistant professor of dance, and Bobby Wesner, visiting instructor of dance, performed their duet "eleven years in" at the Spring to Dance Festival in St. Louis.

Their piece was selected by a panel led by Dance St. Louis Artistic and Executive Director Michael Uthoff. They shared the stage with The Joffrey Ballet, ODC/San Francisco, and Camille A. Brown and Dancers, among others.

Holly Handman-Lopez, visiting assistant professor of dance, performed with poet Esther Dischereit in Konstanz and Isny on April 3rd and 4th. The performance, “Flowers for Othello,” was based on Dischereit's latest book of poems. The poems focus on the current case, in Germany, of a neo-nazi group accused of a series of anti-immigrant murders.

Holly Handman-Lopez performed as a guest artist with Shelter Repertory Dance Theatre at the Southern Theater, in Minneapolis, as part of the Minnesota Fringe Festival. She performed "Rich Pieces," a new dance theater work, which she created collaboratively with the company during the summer. The performances took place in August.

Holly Handman-Lopez, visiting assistant professor of dance, led a group of ten students to the American College Dance Festival Association's Northeast Conference at the College of Brockport in New York, from March 13 to 16. Students took classes in ballet, Paul Taylor technique, improvisation, composition, percussion, release technique, tap, and hip hop. They attended numerous concerts of student, faculty and guest artist work.