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.