Omari Wiles

Ousmane "Omari" Wiles was born in Senegal and began training in West African dance at about age six under his parents, Marie Basse Wiles and Anthony Olukose Wiles, who led the Maimouna Keita School of African Dance. He later became an assistant director in the family company, a foundation that would shape his entire artistic approach: his work does not treat African dance as decoration but as a core vocabulary and lineage.

In New York, Wiles expanded that training through house, modern dance, vogue, and ballroom culture. He became known in ballroom as Omari NiNa Oricci and is recognized as both a ballroom icon and a West African dancer. His practice developed within community structures—houses, balls, teaching, and collective performance—rather than solely on the concert stage. In 2017, Dance Magazine named him one of its "25 to Watch," spotlighting his performances with Ephrat Asherie Dance.

Wiles founded Les Ballet Afrik, a company whose mission joins Black and Latino ballroom experience, LGBTQ community, ancestry, and diasporic dance traditions. He calls the company's blended approach AfrikFusion, bringing together traditional West African movement, vogue, house, modern, and related club vocabularies into a shared choreographic system. In 2019, Works & Process commissioned *New York Is Burning*, Wiles's response to the cultural memory of *Paris Is Burning*. Development continued through pandemic-era bubble residencies, and a 2021 Works & Process performance documented the company's combination of African-diasporic form, Afrobeat, house, and vogue.

Wiles's choreography entered musical theatre at major scale with the 2024 PAC NYC production *Cats: The Jellicle Ball*, co-choreographed with Arturo Lyons and directed by Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch. The production reimagined the musical's competition through ballroom structures and cast expertise. The 68th Obie Awards recognized Levingston and Rauch for direction and Lyons and Wiles for choreography. The production transferred to Broadway in 2026, again crediting Wiles and Lyons as choreographers. Alongside his theatrical work, Wiles continues to lead Les Ballet Afrik, teach vogue and AfrikFusion, and present concert works including *New York Is Burning* and the intergenerational project *Djapo* with Marie Basse Wiles.