About Jessica Lang

Jessica Lang is an American director and choreographer based in New York City. She is Resident Choreographer at Pacific Northwest Ballet and Artist in Residence at Sarasota Ballet.

 

Since 1999, Lang has created more than 100 original works on companies worldwide including American Ballet Theatre, The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Pacific Northwest Ballet, the National Ballet of Japan, The Joffrey Ballet, and her eponymous company Jessica Lang Dance, among many others.

 

For more than two decades, Lang has worked extensively for American Ballet Theatre. Her original creations on the main company include Her Notes, Garden Blue, and ZigZag with the legendary Tony Bennett, as well as Let Me Sing Forevermore which was performed on the ABT Across America nationwide tour and featured regularly on Celebrity Cruise entertainment programs. Lang has created seven ballets on ABT Studio Company including Children’s Songs Dance in collaboration with music icon Chick Corea. Additionally for ABT, Lang was part of the founding faculty of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, a teaching artist for the summer intensives and the Make-a-Ballet program, and served as a mentor and panelist for the Incubator program. 

 

For opera, Lang directed and choreographed Pergolesi's Stabat Mater at the 2013 Glimmerglass Opera Festival that was presented at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival in 2017 performed by Jessica Lang Dance. In 2016, she choreographed San Francisco Opera's production of Aida, directed by Francesca Zambello that was presented at Washington National Opera, Seattle Opera, LA Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago. In 2024, Lang co-choreographed Zambello's new production of Turandot for Washington National Opera and Salome for Des Moines Metro Opera.

 

Additional commissions include new works for the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony Orchestra, The Harris Theater and the Chicago Architecture Biennial in collaboration with architect Steven Holl, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum for its Works and Process series. For fashion, Lang was the movement advisor for Carolina Herrera's Pre-Fall 2022 collection.

 

Lang was Artistic Director of Jessica Lang Dance from 2011-2019. Founded in 2011, the company toured and performed in over 85 cities presented by major venues including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Los Angeles Music Center, The Kennedy Center, The Harris Theater, New York City Center, Northrop Auditorium, Winspear Opera House, Tel Aviv Opera House, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, BAM Fisher and Helikon Opera, among many others.

 

She is the recipient of a 2018 Martha Hill Mid-Career Award, the 2017 Arison Award and a 2014 Bessie Award. She was nominated for The Critics' Circle National Dance Awards for Best Digital Choreography in 2021 for Ghost Variations on Pacific Northwest Ballet and a Manchester Evening News Award in 2012 for Lyric Pieces on Birmingham Royal Ballet. She has been a fellow of New York City Center and The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, and in 2019 named a Caroline Hearst Choreographer-in-Residence at Princeton University. Lang’s work has also been performed by numerous educational institutions including The Juilliard School, SUNY Purchase, NYU Tisch School of the Arts and University of Arizona, among many others.

 

Jessica Lang is originally from Bucks County, PA and a graduate of The Juilliard School under the direction of Benjamin Harkarvy. Lang is a former member of Twyla Tharp's company, THARP! where she toured and performed all over the world.