Kevin O’Day is an American choreographer born in Phoenix, Arizona, whose career spans performance at the highest levels of the dance world and a prolific output of original choreographic work. He received his early training at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York, advancing quickly through Joffrey II before joining the main Joffrey Ballet company. In the winter of 1984, he began a formative association with choreographer Twyla Tharp, followed by a tenure as a soloist with American Ballet Theatre from 1988 to 1991, during which he performed featured roles across both classical and contemporary repertoire.
O’Day’s career continued to deepen when he joined William Forsythe’s acclaimed Frankfurt Ballet in 1991, and from 1992 to 1995, he was a member of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, and he also appeared as a guest artist with the New York City Ballet. It was Baryshnikov who invited O’Day to create his choreographic debut work for White Oak in 1994, launching what would become an expansive second act as a creator.
To date, O’Day has produced more than seventy original ballets, with commissions from New York City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, The Royal Danish Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Pennsylvania Ballet, and many others. In 2002, he was appointed Artistic Director of Nationaltheater Mannheim Ballett, later serving as Ballett Intendant, and beginning in the 2018/2019 season, he has held the position of Artist in Residence with Tanzcompanie Würzburg at Mainfranken Theater Würzburg.