Kevin O’Day

American Kevin O’Day was born in Phoenix (Arizona). In 2002 he was appointed artistic director of the Nationaltheater Mannheim ballet, which was renamed Kevin O’Day Ballett NTM. From 2013 to 2016 he also held the positions of artistic director of ballet and deputy director of theater operations. As of 2018, he was Artist in Residence for the dance company of the Mainfranken Theater Würzburg for three seasons and held the same position at the Badisches Staatsballett Karlsruhe since April 2022.

As a choreographer, O’Day has created more than eighty ballets, including commissioned works for New York City Ballet, Ballet British Columbia, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, The Great Canadian Ballets, Stuttgarter Ballet, The Ballets de Monte Carlo, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet, Gran Ballet Argentino, Royal Danish Ballet, ProArte Danza, BalletX, Gauthier Dance Stuttgart, Ballett im Revier, Ballett Augsburg, Ballett Nordhausen and Visceral Dance Chicago.

O’Day trained as a dancer at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York. A year later, he became a member of Joffrey II, to be accepted the following year in the main company of the Joffrey Ballet. In 1984 he began his long collaboration with choreographer Twyla Tharp. From 1988 to 1991 he danced as a soloist at the American Ballet Theatre, where he performed various roles from the classical and contemporary repertoire. In 1991 he joined William Forsythe’s Frankfurt Ballet. From 1992 to 1995 he was a member of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project. During that time he performed frequently as a guest artist with the New York City Ballet. O’Day debuted as a choreographer in 1994 at the invitation of Mikhail Baryshnikov, who commissioned him to choreograph a new work for the White Oak Dance Project. In 1998 he founded his own company in New York, O’Day Dances, in collaboration with composer John King.

The American has received numerous awards as a choreographer. In 2000 he was nominated for the MTV Video Music Awards in the category of “Best Choreography” for Alanis Morissette’s video “So Pure”. Full Bloom, a collaborative piece with Robert Glumbek and Luches Huddleston Jr, was nominated for a Canadian Dora Mavor Moore Award in 2010. That same year, O’Day was awarded the Koerner Prize, given for the first time by Canada’s Banff Centre.