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, Vienna State Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Sarasota 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 worked extensively with American Ballet Theatre. Her original creations for the main company include Her Notes, Garden Blue, and ZigZag, created in collaboration with the legendary Tony Bennett, as well as Let Me Sing Forevermore, performed on the nationwide ABT Across America tour and featured regularly in Celebrity Cruises entertainment programs. Lang also created seven ballets for ABT Studio Company, including Children’s Songs Dance, in collaboration with music icon Chick Corea, which was added to the main company’s repertoire in 2022. Her longstanding relationship with ABT extended beyond the stage: she was a founding faculty member of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, a teaching artist for ABT Summer Intensives and the Make-a-Ballet program, and served as a mentor and panelist for the ABT Incubator program.

Lang’s work in opera includes directing and choreographing Stabat Mater for the Glimmerglass Festival and Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival; choreographing Aida for San Francisco Opera, Washington National Opera, Seattle Opera, LA Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago; Salome for Des Moines Metro Opera; and co-choreographing Turandot with Kanji Segawa for Washington National Opera, Opéra de Montréal, and The Dallas Opera. Her 2026–27 season with Washington National Opera includes Nixon in China, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer, and the world premiere ballet-opera O’Keeffe: Kiss the Sky, directed by Francesca Zambello with a new score by Christopher Tin.

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’s Works & Process series. In fashion, Lang served as 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 to more than 85 cities and was presented by major venues and festivals including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the 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.

Lang is the recipient of the 2018 Martha Hill Mid-Career Award, the 2017 Arison Award, and a 2014 Bessie Award. She was nominated for The Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Best Digital Choreography in 2021 for Ghost Variations with Pacific Northwest Ballet and for a Manchester Evening News Award in 2012 for Lyric Pieces with Birmingham Royal Ballet. She has been a fellow at New York City Center and The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU and was named a Caroline Hearst Choreographer-in-Residence at Princeton University in 2019. Her work has been performed by numerous educational institutions, including The Juilliard School, SUNY Purchase, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and the University of Arizona, among many others. In 2025, Lang was choreographer for the Prix de Lausanne Partner School Choreographic Project.

Originally from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Lang is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where she studied under the direction of Benjamin Harkarvy. She is a former member of Twyla Tharp’s company, THARP!, with which she toured and performed internationally.