about
Olly Otley
Olly teaches creative movement to a broad range of ages and abilities in a variety of settings.
She specialises in dance for children and teaches creative contemporary in local nurseries, at Rambert and Adrenalin Dance, as well as running the Saturday morning classes at Chisenhale Dance Space. She has delivered dance for primary and secondary age children with autism, and children with disabilities. Having deepened her early years practice, she now delivers CPD workshops and presentations on movement play in Early Years settings.
She loves facilitating movement for adults at her Hackney venture, Wednesday Moving, and runs a dance project for local learning disabled adults, Dancing Together. Olly has led and supported dance for women affected by cancer through Move Dance Feel and has taught several different groups of older adults, through Trinity Laban and other organisations, including dance for better balance, dance for dementia and dance for sustained brain injury.
A mother of two and a lover of nature, Olly started Wild Things in 2020 and loves exploring the woodland on her weekly romps with toddlers and their carers. Nature and Play are integral to all her work, and in 2021 she qualified as a Level 3 Forest School Leader. She runs regular outdoor moving sessions for adults and leads urban nature workshops for schools with The Garden Classroom.
Whoever she works with, her focus is on facilitating their creative agency, and in building playful communities through dance. Her sessions often draw on storytelling, music and making to create a joyous, playful mish-mash.
Olly came back to her childhood passion - dance - after a career in corporate film production, community work and charitable project management. She holds a distinction in Community Dance PGDip from Trinity Laban and she continues to learn from everyone she moves with. Olly dances because it makes her feel good: her mission is to share that feeling with others.
