Atlanta Ballet opens East Coast premiere of 'Frida'

Atlanta Ballet closes its 2025–26 season with the East Coast premiere of “Frida,” a full-length narrative ballet about the life of Frida Kahlo, running May 8-10 at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. Choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Fernanda Cámara, cultural attaché at the Consulate General of Mexico in Atlanta, spoke with WABE Arts about the woman the world knows as an icon — and what a ballet can reveal about her that her image alone cannot. 

How ‘Frida’ became a full-length ballet

Lopez Ochoa first staged Kahlo’s story in 2016 as a short piece called “Broken Wings,”  a collaboration with costume and set designer Dieuweke van Reij, who returns for this production. Even before that premiere, Lopez Ochoa knew the story demanded more space than a short work could hold. 

A full-length version eventually arrived, and she refined it further in response to audience feedback pointing her in one clear direction: less Diego Rivera, more Frida. She expanded the ballet’s second act around Kahlo. The version Atlanta sees is the most fully realized iteration of that vision.