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 at Rambert, Adrenalin Dance and Chisenhale Dance Space. She also loves facilitating movement for adults at her classes in Hackney. 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. She has delivered dance for primary and secondary age children with autism, and children with disabilities.
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.
A mother of two and a lover of nature, Olly has a special interest in early years development. She started Wild Things in 2020 and loves exploring the woodland on her weekly romps with toddlers and their carers. Over the years she has run various arts-based activities for families in Hackney and in Germany, is a qualified Forest School Leader and regularly leads urban nature workshops for schools with The Garden Classroom.
Olly came back to her childhood passion - dance - relatively late in life, after a career in corporate film production, community work and charitable project management. In 2021 she graduated from Trinity Laban, achieving a distinction in her Community Dance PGDip, and she continues to learn from everyone she dances with. Olly moves because it makes her feel good: her mission is to share that feeling with others.
