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Tariq Darrell O’Meally is an artist, producer, curator, and community organizer searching for the power within introspection and vulnerability in the African American body. He has pursued the re-imagining of kinesthetic narratives as a means to resist and disrupt canonized stories that have perpetuated the dehumanization of marginalized groups, specifically black people. He seeks to synthesize those stories that will resonate in a way that is socially relevant, empathetic, and impactful.

In his position as an Artistic Planning Coordinator on Dance, Theater, and Artist Residencies at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Tariq Darrell O’Meally serves as a steward of the Visiting Artist Series artistic vision and helps shape the strategic program in collaboration with curatorial colleagues, staff, faculty, and students.

O’Meally is the creator, curator, and lead producer of the BlackLight Summit. Blacklight is a convening that re-envisions dance performance as a conduit to galvanize the social imaginations, resilience, and inventiveness of citizens, thinkers, activists, and artists. In addition to his duties as a curator, Tariq is a working artist in the DMV. Currently, his work focuses on being a contemporary dance artist striving to transition into a post-contemporary context. That is to say that if contemporary work interacts with the fierce urgency of now; then post-contemporary exploration integrates what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen, intersecting these concepts with the vulnerability and necessity of being
human.

As a choreographer, O’Meally has presented his work at the John F. Kennedy Center, the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival and Smithsonian Arts & Industries Building, By The People Festival, The Clarice Smith 34th & 35th Annual Choreographer’s Showcase, Mid-Atlantic North Gala at the American College Dance Association, and Richmond Dance Festival. He is the Artistic Director of Tariq Darrell+the
UNUM Dance Collective, a DMV-based collection of dance artists seeking to create doorways and windows leading to the seen and unseen; lived and living experiences of African Americans.

As an educator, O’Meally has been on faculty at Hollins University, the CityDance School & Conservatory Dance Institute of Washington in addition to presenting as a guest lecturer at Coppin State University, Morgan State University, the National Gallery of Art, The Hirshhorn Museum, and the French Embassy. O’Meally is the Founder/Director of the Dimensions Contemporary Dance Festival, which is a platform to promote, amplify, and spread the various eclectic voices of DMV contemporary dance artists of color.

O’Meally has been chosen as a 2022 NDP Advisor 2021 Rubys Artist Grantee, 2020-2022 Artist-In-Residence at Dance Place, and 2020 Site See Artists-in-Residence. In 2019 & 2021, O’Meally was an Art Omi Resident Artist, as well as a 2018 2019 Halcyon Arts Lab Fellow. He also was a 2018-19 Joe’s Movement Emporium NextLOOK Artist and Dance Place’s 2017-18 New Releases Commissioned Artist. He currently holds a BFA in Dance & Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University.