Holly Handman-Lopez

  • Assistant Professor of Dance

Areas of Study

Education

  • BA, Connecticut College
  • MFA, choreography and performance, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
  • Studied and worked with David Dorfman, Nicholas Leichter, and Lisa Race

Biography

Holly Handman-Lopez joined the Oberlin College dance faculty in 2003, and has choreographed numerous concert works, straight and musical theater pieces, and operas. Recent productions have included 33 1/3 (Dobama Theater), Body of Bourne, A Bernstein Revue, Angels in America, Romeo and Juliet, Picnic, The Winter’s Tale, The Miracle Worker, Spring Awakening, and Mr. Burns (with Cleveland Public Theatre).

She received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for her contemporary dance/theater work and has been recognized by the Cleveland Critics Circle for Superior Achievement in Choreography.

Handman-Lopez danced professionally in New York City with many prominent choreographers—including David Dorfman, Nicholas Leichter, and Lisa Race—and performed extensively in New York City venues and as a member of national and international tours.

Most recently, she performed in Germany and Denmark with internationally acclaimed poet Esther Dischereit, and in the United States with Neos Dance Theatre and Shelter Repertory Dance Theatre.

In summer 2018, Handman-Lopez made her directorial debut with Little Women for the Oberlin Summer Theater Festival.

Earlier in her career at Oberlin, she choreographed Oberlin’s production of Orpheus in the Underworld in 2004; A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2007; Kindle in 2007; Tennessee Williams' Vieux Carre in 2008; and in 2009  for the Oberlin Dance Company.

Fall 2024

Somatic Meditation and Breathwork — DANC 140
Production Project — DANC 211
Practicum in Dance — DANC 311
Senior Project — DANC 400

Spring 2025

Contemporary Dance I: Beginning — DANC 100
Production Project — DANC 211
Musical Theater Dance — DANC 242
Practicum in Dance — DANC 311
Senior Project — DANC 400

Notes

Ohio Arts Council Presents Holly Handman-Lopez with Individual Excellence Award

February 11, 2022

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 Co-Creates Visual Reality Dance Experiment

December 2, 2019

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.

Holly Handman-Lopez and Matthew Wright Collaborate on Musical

July 30, 2019

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 Performs at Figge Art Museum

November 7, 2017

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 Produces, Performs

October 6, 2017

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.

Holly Handman-Lopez Acknowledged for Achievement

December 22, 2016

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.

Dance Department Awards and Recognition

May 16, 2016

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.”

Holly Handman-Lopez Receives Individual Excellence Award

April 27, 2016

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 Performs

December 11, 2015

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 and Bobby Wesner Perform Duet

September 11, 2015

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 Performs in Germany

November 21, 2014

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 Performs with Shelter Repertory Dance Theatre

November 3, 2014

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 Leads Students to Conference

April 14, 2014

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.

News

Phoebe Brown ’24 Earns Fulbright to Spain

July 11, 2024

Phoebe Brown ’24 has earned a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) to Spain for the 2024-2025 academic year, giving her the opportunity to teach English in an early education school in the Canary Islands.

The Dark Side of Orpheus

March 7, 2024

Oberlin Opera Theater’s latest production gives a complex, contemporary take on the familiar story of the Greek hero in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo .

This Week in Photos: Perfectly Pitched

June 1, 2022

Students in the Class of 2022 walk down a shaded pathway that joins a large tent nestled in a backyard on Forest Street. They will soon be welcomed by their host, President Carmen Twillie Ambar, into a spring day senior garden party.