Lighting the Way

metroweekly.com:

So You Think You Can Dance — an interest not fueled by a desire to compete on the hit FOX reality show, or even to learn any of the featured choreography.“At its peak, I could barely walk in a straight line,” quips the professional dancer and choreographer. “But I can tell you almost anything from season 1 to season 7.

I was obsessed for a long time. I used to save the episodes on my DVR and just watch the routines over and over and over. Not trying to learn them, just obsessed with the choreography….

Just being able to watch and understand how things are shaped, and what it means to craft an experience that people will be excited about, and feel engaged in, actually taught me a lot.”Born in Queens and raised in Prince George’s County, the 33-year-old credits the show for helping cultivate his passion for dance, and ultimately helping move him to make that his career. “I was a theater kid who went into community college to stall, to keep my mother off my back, until I figured out what I wanted to do,” he explains. “And I tripped into a dance concert and then fell in love with So You Think You Can Dance and kind of never looked back.”Shortly after graduating with a dance and choreography degree from Virginia Commonwealth University, O’Meally started working on commissions from Dance Place and the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland.

His relationships with, and support from, both institutions have only grown stronger over the past several years, with O’Meally now an artistic planning coordinator at the Clarice and an Artist-in-Residence at Dance Place.