About RL&D Company

Rogelio Lopez & Dancers (RL&D) is a modern dance company established in 2015. RL&D believes that dance speaks a universal language that pulls at the core of human existence. By letting the body speak, we create a “body literacy” that fosters a real, present connection between people.

RL&D seeks to spread this “body literacy” within and beyond the Bay Area by actively engaging with the local, growing, and vibrant dance art scene. RL&D heralds the importance of the individual voice, and that when shared and filtered through integral craft, it has a universally binding significance. Rogelio Lopez has a Queer, Mexican-American, “lower class background” voice that neither denies nor engulfs the person and artist that he is.

Through Rogelio Lopez’s particular use of the embodied dancer, a spacious, weighted, unaffected virtuosity of disarming dance emerges, with the capacity to transform

Meet the Company

Kevin Gaytan

A man wearing a hat, dark shirt, and patterned skirt performs a dance outdoors during sunset, with trees in the background and colorful fabric flowing around him.

Dancer/Collaborator

Josue Oregel

A man wearing a leather vest, jeans, and cowboy boots is performing a high kick outdoors during sunset, holding a cowboy hat in his raised hand, with trees and a grassy field in the background.

Dancer/Collaborator

Matthew Han

Person dressed in traditional Mexican attire, wearing a large sombrero, sitting on a colorful woven blanket on grass, with eyes closed and arms extended, outdoors during sunset.

Dancer/Collaborator

Luis Isiordia

A person wearing a cowboy hat and Western-style clothing jumps in mid-air outside during sunset, with trees in the background and grass below.

Dancer/Collaborator

Andrew Merrell

A man with long, wavy hair and a beard, smiling, sitting on outdoor concrete stairs, wearing a light blue sweatshirt and mustard-colored pants, with a mug on the stairs next to him.

Rehearsal Director

Jill Randall

Close-up of a smiling woman with curly gray hair against a black background.

Marketing Coordinator

Sima Belmar

A woman with shoulder-length brown hair and glasses, wearing a black shirt, smiling in front of a yellow background.

Grant Writer

Rogelio López

A man in athletic clothing holding a water bottle and looking up with his eyes closed, in a dark environment with minimal lighting.

Artistic Director/Choreographer

Rogelio López is a choreographer, dancer, and designer with expertise in lighting, set design, and costume design. He holds an MFA from California State University, Long Beach. Additionally, he is a Full Professor and the Director of the Dance program at St. Mary’s College.

Rogelio has been nominated for three Isadora Duncan Awards, including Outstanding Visual Design, Ensemble Performance, and Choreography, and he won the awards for Outstanding Visual Design and Choreography for his work, "Entre Despierto y Dormido," in 2024. In the same year, RL&D earned a bronze medal in the Best of the East Bay competition for Best Dance Company.

Rogelio teaches regularly at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Oakland, California.