James O'Hara, originally from Fremantle Western Australia, works internationally as a dance performer, teacher, choreographic assistant and choreographer. He became a member of Ballet Junior de Genève in 2003 and in 2004 was a recipient of a Princess Grace Foundation Bursary at the Monaco Dance Forum.

Since then, O’Hara has worked as a performer with Ballet Preljocaj (France), Ohad Naharin/Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet (New York), Matthew Lutton and Chrissie Parrott (Malthouse Melbourne), Gideon Obarzanek/The Australian Ballet, Ross McCormack (Muscle Mouth New Zealand), Stephanie Lake (Malthouse Melbourne), The Norwegian National Ballet, The Paris Opera Ballet and The Bolshoi Theatre for the Benois de la Danse.

Since 2006, O’Hara worked extensively with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui as a collaborator and performer, most notably on Myth, Faun and Babel(words), co-created by Damien Jalet. He was Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s choreographic assistant on numerous creations including Orbo Novo (Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, New York), Labyrinth (Het Nationale Ballet, Amsterdam), Noetic (GöteborgsOperans Danskompani) and Boléro, co-created by Damien Jalet and Marina Abramović (Paris Opera Ballet).

Alongside Marina Mascarell, James performed in The Unreality of Time and Like a large animal deep in sleep (Korzo) and was her assistant for Mongrel (GöteborgsOperans Danskompani) and Le diable bat sa femme (Lyon Opéra Ballet).

With the National Youth Dance Company of Sadler’s Wells, London, James assisted Michael Keegan Dolan on his creation In Nocentes and Damien Jalet on Tarantiseismic. He has taught at Sydney Dance Company, Bangarra Dance Theatre, Akram Khan Company, Purchase New York, Artesis Antwerp, Transformation/Danse à la Carte in Montréal and West Australian Academy of Performing Arts where he recently created The Roaring Silence… alongside Balázs Busa.

O'Hara has been nominated for a Helpmann Award, Green Room Award and Australian Dance Award.

Since January 2017, James is based in Wellington at the New Zealand School of Dance.