Jewels Program 2022

Miami City Ballet has a diverse roster of 54 dancers and a repertoire of more than 130 works. As one of the most renowned ballet companies in the country, Miami City Ballet performs for nearly 125,000 patrons annually during its South Florida home season in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and tours to major cities domestically and internationally, including recent visits to New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris.

Miami City Ballet School, the official school of Miami City Ballet, is one of the most respected ballet training academies in America. The School trains students, ages 3-18 year-round, and grants more than $650,000 in scholarships annually.

Miami City Ballet’s Community Engagement programs, serving more than 12,000 people annually in schools and communities; our free programs use the power of dance to uplift, teach and bring joy.

Miami City Ballet was founded in 1985 by Miami philanthropist Toby Lerner Ansin and Founding Artistic Director Edward Villella. It is headquartered in Miami Beach, FL, at the Ophelia & Juan Js. Roca Center, a facility designed by renowned architectural firm, Arquitectonica.

Lourdes Lopez has become one of the ballet world’s most prominent and accomplished contributors. Dance Magazine named her a 2018 recipient of its prestigious Dance Magazine Awards, choosing Lopez for her “…admirable stewardship of Miami City Ballet, building upon the company’s Balanchine legacy while also embracing the local culture and community of Miami,” and as “…an exemplary leader, someone whom dancers look up to and are inspired by.” In 2017, the magazine also named her one of “The Most Influential People in Dance Today”.

She became Artistic Director of Miami City Ballet in 2012, bringing with her a nearly 40-year career in dance, television, teaching and arts management. As a Soloist and Principal Dancer with New York City Ballet, Lopez danced for two legends of the art form, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. Under Lopez’s direction, Miami City Ballet has become one of the country’s premier ballet companies. According to The New York Times, “This troupe [is] at the forefront of all those dancing choreography by George Balanchine today…. Bold, light, immediate, intensely musical, the dancing of Miami City Ballet flies straight to the heart.”

Born in Havana, Cuba in 1958 and raised in Miami, Lopez began taking ballet lessons at the age of five, on the recommendation of a doctor. At the age of 11 she received a full scholarship to the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet, splitting the year between Miami and New York City. At fourteen, she moved to New York permanently to devote herself to full-time studies at SAB, and shortly after her sixteenth birthday, joined the corps de ballet of New York City Ballet. Under the direction of George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, her star rose quickly at New York City Ballet. In 1984, she was promoted to Soloist, performing countless featured roles including Balanchine’s Violin Concerto, Liebeslieder Walzer, Firebird, Serenade, Symphony in C, Agon, The Four Temperaments; and Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering, Glass Pieces, Fancy Free, In the Night, Four Seasons and Brandenburg.

Upon retirement, Lopez joined WNBC-TV in New York as a Cultural Arts reporter, writing and producing feature segments on the arts, artists and arts education. She was also a full-time senior faculty member and Director of Student Placement, Student Evaluation and Curriculum Planning at New York’s Ballet Academy East. She served on the dance faculty of Barnard College and guest taught at numerous dance institutions and festivals in the United States.

In 2002, Lopez became the Executive Director of The George Balanchine Foundation, which works to educate the public about dance and to further the art of ballet, with a special emphasis on the work and achievements of George Balanchine. In this position, she oversaw the 2004 Balanchine Centennial Celebration, a worldwide festival honoring the choreographer and his legacy. Lopez co-founded The Cuban Artists Fund, which supports Cuban and Cuban-American artists in their endeavors.

In 2014, Lopez was elected to serve on the Ford Foundation’s Board of Trustees and is presently starting her second term, marking the first time an artist was elected to serve on its board. In 2011, she received the prestigious Jerome Robbins Award for her years in dance. She has served as a dance panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts.

In 2017, she received an award from the American Immigration Law Foundation honoring Cuban Americans for their accomplishments and contributions to American society. She also co-founded
Morphoses with Christopher Wheeldon in 2007—a New York-based dance company aiming to revitalize dance through innovative collaborations with important artists from the worlds of music, visual arts, design, film and fashion; and by inviting younger and broader audiences to engage in and actively experience dance.

In 2019 she was honored with Ballet Hispánico’s “Toda Una Vida” Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2021 she was awarded the prestigious “Una Vida para la Danza (A Life for Dance) by the International Ballet Festival of Miami.

Lopez is married and is the mother of two daughters, Adriel and Calliste.

Tania Castroverde Moskalenko joined Miami City Ballet as Executive Director in August 2018, bringing with her more than 20 years of experience leading performing arts institutions and guiding them through strategic, financial, and operational turnarounds. As MCB’s Executive Director, she oversees finance, fundraising and development, marketing and communications, community engagement, human resources, and the business side of the Miami City Ballet School. Sixty days after her arrival at MCB, she presented the Board with an ambitious plan for a $55M capital campaign to ensure MCB’s long-term financial health. To date, the 4-year Transforming Lives Campaign has raised 97% of its goal.

Prior to MCB, Castroverde Moskalenko served as the Chief Executive Officer of Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre, revitalizing the organization’s financial health through new programming, increased earned revenue, and expanded philanthropic support.

In 2017, she was named 'Chicagoan of the Year for Dance' by the Chicago Tribune. Prior, Castroverde Moskalenko spent four years as President and CEO of the Center for the Performing Arts and the Great American Songbook Foundation in Indiana where she implemented a strategic plan that increased and diversified programming, audience reach, board membership, and contributed revenue. Before that, she spent seven years as the Executive Director of the Germantown Performing Arts Centre in Tennessee, where she erased a structural deficit, created a reserve fund, and founded successful programs such as the GPAC Youth Symphony Orchestra and Jazz in the Box.

Castroverde Moskalenko holds a BFA from the University of Memphis, an MA in Philanthropic Studies from Indiana University, and a Certification in Non-Profit Financial Management from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. She serves on the Board of Directors of Philanthropy Miami.

Castroverde Moskalenko was raised in Miami where she and her family arrived as political refugees from Cuba when she was six years old. She is the mother of five children and is married to a former Russian ballet dancer, Alexei Moskalenko, who is Assistant Artistic Director of the Youth America Grand Prix.

When she was 5 years old, at the suggestion of an orthopedist, Toby Lerner Ansin’s parents enrolled her in a beginning ballet class to help counteract a condition known as pronation, which occurs when one’s ankles turn in. That class was the beginning of a passionate love affair Toby has had with ballet that continues to this day. Until she was fourteen, determined to become a professional ballet dancer, Toby took classes six days a week. But one day she looked in the mirror at some of the other students in her class and then at herself and that evening calmly told her parents she was no longer going to pursue a career in ballet because while she had the drive, she didn’t have the body or talent to be a dancer. “I look like a limping giraffe,” she said, with finality. Nevertheless, she continued to regularly take class and whenever American Ballet Theatre made its annual appearance in her hometown of Boston, she attended every one of its performances.

In 1985, Toby became involved in the dance scene of Miami and realized that the reason no professional ballet company had been able to sustain itself in South Florida was because it lacked a “luminary,” a credible star who could attract creative talent as well as the money to support it. About that time, a friend, introduced her to Edward Villella. Toby arranged a meeting at her house with Villella that lasted four hours. By the time he left that day, she had convinced him that Miami was about to launch a professional ballet company. That evening she called 6 friends. Each gave her a check for a thousand dollars. She added her own check for a thousand dollars and shortly afterwards, invited Villella, a former star of New York City Ballet to be Founding Artistic Director. Then she relentless went to work raising more funds and recruiting prominent and influential members of the community to share her vision and join the Board of
Directors of the fledgling company. Toby’s dream of a professional ballet company soon became Miami’s dream. And about a year later Miami City Ballet gave its first performance. Years later, the company appeared at the Kennedy Center and Edward Villella wrote to her, “Our engagement was the culmination of the vision you had ten years ago, and I am so grateful it was me with whom you shared the dream.”

In 2010, in honor of her 70th birthday and MCB’s 25th anniversary, the Ansin Foundation established the Toby Lerner Ansin Scholarship fund. Each year, Toby sponsors a scholarship for a talented young dancer, which has helped numerous dancers become part of the company. Because of her vision, leadership, and unceasing efforts, Miami City Ballet today is an internationally acclaimed company with a growing reputation as a cradle of creativity for young dancers and choreographers. And Toby has received wide recognition for her accomplishments. Among the awards she has received are: the George Abbott Carbonell Award for Achievement in the Arts, the National Red Cross Spectrum Award for Women, the Florida Arts Recognition Award, the Arts Hero Award from the Arts & Business Council of Miami, the Florida International Press Club Imprint Award, the Woman of Style and Substance Award, and Dance/USA's Champion Award.

But the recognition she takes greatest pride in doesn’t even mention her name. In 2016, MCB received an invitation to dance in Lincoln Center for a week in April. The New York Times dance critic wrote three rave reviews about the company’s performance. Here’s a quote from his reviews, “…the dancing of Miami City Ballet flies straight to the heart…What can be done to bring this company here more often?”