Co-Founders & Directors

“The two bring lifetimes of creativity and expertise” - Oregon ArtsWatch

Xuan Cheng ballet teacher ballerina

Xuan Cheng, Artistic Director

As a ballerina, teacher, director, and dance world visionary, Xuan Cheng shares the immense joy and beauty of dance, instilling peoples’ lives with a transportive sense of magic and grace. As Ballet Master and Principal Dancer for the world-renowned Hong Kong Ballet, Cheng delivers performances that are full of “musicality, technical skill, attention to detail, intelligence and heart.” (Dance International Magazine ) She “embraces a theatrical sensuality and attack, with a crisp, technical precision,” (The Dance Current) and has an “innate ability to make simple theatrical devices heartbreaking.” (Dance International Magazine) Mesmerizing onstage, Cheng celebrates twenty years as a professional dancer, having recently closed out a decade-long tenure as Principal Dancer for the Oregon Ballet Theatre.

From Chenzhou, China, Cheng’s early and intensely rigorous training shaped her as an artist, facilitating an extraordinary level of physical and mental discipline, but also fluidity and freedom in her dancing that is nothing less than exquisite. Celebrated for her passion in starring roles with the Oregon Ballet Theatre including Cinderella, Juliet, Giselle, Alice, the Sugar Plum Fairy, Scheherazade, Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, and Odette/Odile in both Christopher Stowell’s and Kevin Irving’s Swan Lake, Cheng was the first Chinese dancer to ever dance the full-length role of Teresina in August Bournonville’s Napoli in 2018.

Additional honors include the Gold Medal in China’s Tao Li Bei World Dance Competition (2006); placing as a finalist in the 8th New York International Ballet Competition (2005); and the Silver Medal in the 3rd Shanghai International Ballet Competition (2004). Cheng is a former Principal Dancer of La La La Human Steps (for which she performed in 20 countries across Europe, Asia, and North America), former Principal Dancer with Guangzhou Ballet of China, and former Soloist with Les Grands Ballet Canadiens. Cheng studied at the Xinghai Conservatory of Music and Dance and the GuangZhou Arts School, having been selected and mentored by prima ballerina Dan Dan Zhang. In addition to co-founding and directing OIBA with her husband, Ye Li, Cheng has also taught at the Oregon Ballet Theatre School since 2013. For more information, visit xuanchengballet.com.

Ye Li, Executive Director & Choreographer

Known for his visionary direction, astonishing technique, and sensitive musicality, choreographer Ye Li leads dancers in dynamic, meaningful performance with exquisite detail. His lush and gripping work has received accolades on stages worldwide, including First Place in the 2024 Rising Stars Dance Competition (Dongguan, Guandung, China) for The Waiting Room. 

Other recent works include The 61st Second (2023) performed by the Hong Kong Ballet, and two pieces that each won Second Prize in the Palm Desert Choreography Festival (in 2022 and 2019 respectively): The Daylight Within and You Will Return. Deemed “beautiful... a touching story through artistic, intimate and graceful moves” (The Desert Sun), You Will Return made its international debut at The Achievement Exhibition of the 12th “TaoLi Cup” National Dancing Education Performance of China in 2019. Of his Nutcracker, co-choreographed with his wife Xuan Cheng, Ballet Mistress of the Hong Kong Ballet, Oregon ArtsWatch noted that the production, “engaged my jaded attention from the first excited jumps… to the elaborate wrapup of the action.”

A multi-award-winning performer, Li was a soloist dancer with Oregon Ballet Theatre for four years, performing lead roles in Giselle, Swan Lake, Don Quixote, Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet, La bayadere, La sylphide, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker. Before that, he danced as a soloist with the GuangZhou Ballet of China for 11 years, and as a company member of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens for two years. His illustrious career includes work with a wide range of world-class choreographers. 

Li is the Executive Director and Choreographer for the Oregon International Ballet Academy which he co-founded in 2015 with Xuan Cheng. He has also served as the Rehearsal Director of OBT2, Oregon Ballet Theatre’s Junior company, and as a guest dance instructor at GuangZhou Arts school. Ye Li was born in An Shan, Liaoning Province of China and resides in Portland, OR. For more information, visit yelidance.com.

Instructors

  • Grace Armstrong

    TEACHER

    Grace Armstrong is from Shoreline, Washington where she began training with Olympic Ballet School. In 2014 and 2015 she competed in the Youth America Grand Prix and was awarded Top 12 in the semi-finals. Grace participated in many intensives throughout her training, in 2019 she was chosen to attend a Forsyth intensive in Madrid. In Spring 2020, she graduated from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music with a Bachelor of Science in Ballet with an Outside Field in Arts Management. While at IU, Grace was an instructor with Indiana University’s Pre-College Ballet Program from 2017-2020. After graduation, she joined Oregon Ballet Theatre 2.

  • TEACHER

    Carly Wheaton

    TEACHER

    Carly Wheaton is from Marin County, Calif., where she trained with Stapleton Ballet School, Marin Ballet, and San Francisco Ballet School.

    Carly went on to dance with Ballet Memphis as a Trainee and with The Washington Ballet’s Second Company and main Company for a total of three seasons. Prior to joining Oregon Ballet Theatre, she danced with BalletMet from 2015 to 2022. Carly now performs as a principal dancer with Oregon Ballet Theatre. She has had the pleasure of performing works by choreographers Dani Rowe, Julia Adam, Jiří Kylián, Val Caniparoli, Alexander Ekman, Matthew Neenan, Christopher Wheeldon, Andi Schermoly, Ma Cong, Septime Webre, Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, Edwaard Liang, James Kudelka, and George Balanchine. Carly loves teaching ballet and is thrilled to share time in the studio with OIBA’s students in the coming months.

  • Brian Simcoe

    GUEST TEACHER

    Brian Simcoe is from Grants Pass, Oregon. He trained with Long Beach Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and the School of Oregon Ballet Theatre. Brian has danced with Oregon Ballet Theatre from 2004-2026 and has performed a wide variety of work throughout his career by choreographers such as George Balanchine, James Kudelka, Nacho Duato, Christopher Wheeldon, and William Forsythe. He has graced the stage alongside the OIBA dancers for the past 10 years and loves getting the opportunity to coach them.

  • Lisa Kipp

    GUEST TEACHER

    Lisa Kipp has danced with Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pacific Ballet Theatre, Ballet Oregon, Ballet of Los Angeles, Ballet Chicago, and James Sewell Dance, and also performed in the touring company of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera. Kipp danced principal roles in George Balanchine’s Rubies, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Square Dance, Concerto Barocco, and Apollo, and appeared as the Cowgirl in Agnes De Mille’s Rodeo. Prior to joining OBT in 2004, she was the Ballet Department Head for the school of Spectrum Dance Theater in Seattle, as well as the company’s Rehearsal Director. Kipp has been the ballet master for OBT for 9 years, and the company’s rehearsal director for 2 years. As a ballet master, she has assisted James Kudelka, Lar Lubovitch, Lola DeAvila, Nicolo Fonte, Francia Russell, Bart Cook, Christine Redpath, Christopher Stowell, Yuri Possokhov, and Helgi Tomasson. She has staged George Balanchine’s Rubies, Square Dance, and Who Cares? for OBT, and is responsible for the corps de ballet in OBT’s classical repertoire.

PR Representation and Communications Support

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