Kitty McNamee - Artistic Director

Kitty McNamee is a highly regarded choreographer, earning distinction from Dance Magazine as an artist with “an outsize talent for that most elusive gift, originality.” Kitty began her career as the Artistic Director of Hysterica Dance Co. a consistently prolific and creative collective that redefined dance in Los Angeles. Kitty’s career has successfully spanned live performance, TV and film. She finds her work across genres to be incredibly invigorating - the cross pollination from low to high art fuels her creativity. The LA Times declares her work “exciting and distinctive” with “a serious dose of beauty and depth.” 

Recent work includes choreography for LA Opera’s Tales of Hoffman, Target’s “A New Kind of Strong” campaign, Secret Cinema’s groundbreaking live performances with Laura Marling in London, the World Premiere of Colony Collapsecommissioned by Oregon Shakespeare Festival and The Fantasticks at Pasadena Playhouse. 

Kitty loves working with actors and is known for her ability to draw out organically nuanced performances. She has coached and choreographed for Paz Vega, Julianne Hough, Margaret Cho, Vanessa Williams, Vittorio Grigolo, Lily Tomlin, Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazon, the boys of 90210 and the ladies of the L- Word. Kitty has loved getting down and dirty choreographing Beautiful and Twisted, Petals on the Wind and Lizzie Borden for Lifetime. She has created movement for music artists Laura Marling, Belly, Fono, Josh Kelley, Kait Weston, Kinky, Hecuba, Nicole Turley, Henry Wolfe and Ariana Delawari. 

Recent stage work includes RIFT commissioned by Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the creation of the new ballets Traces and Transit for National Choreographer's Initiative and colony for LA Ballet. 

Kitty collaborated with music icon Easy Mike to create a new hip/hop ballet of “On the Waterfront” for Muse/ique. Opera credits include Tales of Hoffman, Lucia de Lammermoor, Don Carlo and La Rondine for LA Opera, La Traviata for LA Opera, San Francisco Opera and San Diego Opera, Romeo and Juliette for LA Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago. She has a long and fruitful relationship with the LA Philharmonic, where she has choreographed, directed and developed new productions including Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Wing on Wing. On the commercial front clients include Target, Mercedes, Adobe, GreyAnt, Uniqlo, Proactiv, Wynn Hotels, Devlinhair/Novartis, Flash on the Beach, MADD, Hexbug and Magic Sofa.