Born ca. 1955 in Oxford, North Carolina to Mrs. Catherine Turrentine and Mr. Daye, Otis Daye moved to Durham when he was seven years old and attended Northern High School (in Durham, North Carolina).

Daye told The Herald-Sun in 1979, “Ever since I can remember, I wanted to dance…. I would go into the woods and leap….” He trained at North Carolina School of the Arts on scholarship, the Dance Theatre of Harlem school, School of American Ballet, and the American Dance Center.

A member of the Iranian National Ballet Company from 1977 to 1978, Daye then joined Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1979 and said about Ailey, “Alvin is like my father….He’s very sensitive, and he knows how to bring things out of you that you didn’t know you had.”

After dancing as “Delilah Razzmatazzmova” in Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo in 1985, he also performed with the Capitol Ballet in Nathaniel Orr’s Undeniably Bach in May 1988.

As a guest artist, Daye appeared with the Charlotte Youth Ballet in The Sleeping Beauty in 1990 with Harry Bryde African American Dance Theatre in 1993.

 

 

 

 

 

Sources:

Capitol Ballet Capital Night, The Washington Post
Iranian National Ballet Company, Wikipedia
Kysionia Daye, IMDb
The Trocks, The Pittsburgh Press
Ailey’s In Durham–Durham’s In Ailey Too, The Durham Sun
Dancers Back On Familiar Ground, The Charlotte Observer
Trockadero Dancers at El Camino, The Los Angeles Times
It’s Homecoming For Two Dancers, The Herald-Sun
Can Charlotte Support Dance, Or Will We Sit This One Out?, The Charlotte Observer
Tribute puts Lewis’s works center stage, The Atlanta Constitution