McCree O’Kelley is an Associate Professor of Dance at Kennesaw State University. He began his ballet training with Ann Brodie and the Carolina Ballet in Columbia, SC. At 16 he moved to New York City, accepting a full scholarship to the School of American Ballet. He furthered his dance training at the North Carolina School of the Arts studying with Duncan Noble, Melissa Hayden and Warren Conover.
His versatile career as a professional dancer included performing with the Atlanta Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, and the Broadway National Tour of Cats as Mr. Mistoffelees. His vast repertoire includes Balanchine’s Serenade (Waltz Man), Allegro Brillante, Rubies, Who Cares, Stars and Stripes, Western Symphony, Lila York’s Celts (Green Man) and Gloria, Kevin O’Day’s Viola Alone…(with one exception), Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s Great Galloping Gottschalk (Men’s Duet), Twyla Tharp’s Deuce Coupe, Alan Hineline’s Twist and Thresholds, Martha Graham’s Diversion of Angels (Red Man), Val Caniparoli’s Open Veins, Lew Christensen’s Con Amore, Ben Stevenson’s Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland and Michael Pink’s Dracula and Hunchback of Notre Dame.
As a choreographer he has created works for the KSU Dance Company, Pacific Symphony, Alliance Theater, Trainees of Cincinnati Ballet, Ballet Spartanburg, Carolina Ballet, Ballet Southeast, Atlanta Dance Theater, Dance Converse, Theater Converse, Center Stage and Workshop Theater of South Carolina. In 2016 he was selected as one of four finalists for Ballet Arkansas’s choreographic competition, Visions. In 2016 and 2018 his works were selected to be performed in the New Voices Concert at the Alabama Dance Festival. In 2019 his work Pariah was selected for Off the EDGE and was performed by the KSU Dance Company at the Rialto Center for the Arts.
Previously McCree was an assistant professor of dance at Converse College in Spartanburg, SC, where he was the artistic director of Dance Converse. He has served on the faculty of the American Academy of Ballet, the University of South Carolina Conservatory of Dance, the Atlanta Ballet Summer Program, Ballet Spartanburg and the University of California, Irvine. He holds a BA in Dance from the University of South Carolina and an MFA in Dance from the University of CA, Irvine.
