Each piece Annabelle Ochoa Lopez choreographs has some autobiographical seed.
This one grew from a moment on a crowded train in Holland, when she received a phone call: A wonderful dancer, dear friend, and dancer of her signature piece “Before after”, had died, suddenly, at 33 years old, apparently healthy and strong, perhaps of a heart attack…
The small thread of that large event informs Cylindrical Shadows in many ways.
Of this piece about disturbance, disruptions, and how we survive them, Annabelle says: “There is no difference between life and death; they are not opposites, as we are taught to believe. They are both part of a single continuum, the continuum of life.”

Lopez Ochoa’s invention was especially lively in unison passages where the six dancers zipped through a catalog of dips, flutters, ripples, arm-swings — a veritable semaphore of moves, with bit of jazz snap to it. She also drew on the ballet strengths of Whim W’Him’s dancers, especially in a courtly pas de deux by Eames and Herrera.

Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times

In Cylindrical Shadows, guest choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa presents breathy moves punctuated with classical riffs as emphasized in the pointe work of ballerinas Eames and Herrera. The contact improvisation–like movement, and especially the lifts, suggest something about the precariousness of life.

Gigi Berardi, Dance Magazine