Elly Crowther

After completing her professional training at London Contemporary Dance school in 2003, Elly moved to Cornwall to distance herself from the competitive and slightly overwhelming dance industry in London. Working with adults and young people and performing again, Elly rediscovered her love of movement and studied for her post-compulsory PGCE in Dance at Truro College. Moving to Oxford, she was thrilled to discover a vibrant dance community in Oxford Dance Forum where she was able to play, perform and find collaborators. She danced in the Solos project, Moving with the Times, Dancin’ Oxford Festival and a wide range of community projects. Elly soon started teaching for Oxford Youth Dance, founded in 1986 by community and intergenerational Dance visionary Cecilia Macfarlane - now a dear friend, mentor and ‘Dance-parent’ to Elly’s daughter! Elly began teaching Slipstream Youth Dance group in 2008 and quickly found a love of inclusive, community and intergenerational dance, guest teaching for OYD, DugOut Adult Community group and performing with Crossover Intergenerational Projects. Elly shares Cecilia’s belief that dance is for everybody and was excited and humbled to take over direction of OYD in 2018, soon after the group’s 30th Anniversary. Elly stage-managed ‘Destino’ in 2009, a groundbreaking project working in the UK and Ethiopia with a fully inclusive cast. Witnessing how the Ethiopian dancers moved so freely, profoundly affected Elly, inspiring her to keep exploring the deep humanity and joy the dancers expressed despite being differently abled. She has spent the last 7 years as Ellyfish & Things performing family and story inspired walkabouts with a mixed cast of professional and non professional dancers at Little Folk, the award winning children’s area at Green Man festival and other festivals. Working extensively in alternative provision, mainstream and SEN schools with children of all ages and abilities, she thrives on working in an inclusive way; helping young people discover movement and recognise their humanness through stories, themes, improvisation and choreography. Elly danced with her bump whilst pregnant in 2017 and now loves dancing with her daughter at every opportunity; first performing onstage together when Frankie was just 6 months old and most recently performing together in ‘Nest’ by Cecilia Macfarlane for Dancin’ Oxford Festival’s Digital Playground. Before lockdown, Elly had started a journey seeking a way to take her inclusive, gentle and creative style online, launching Every Body Dances in March 2020. She is creating offerings that bring mindful joy and connection to humans who love to move but perhaps haven’t found a beautiful connective practice that works for them yet. She is inspired to build a thriving online dance community founded on embodiment, somatic movement, improvisation, dance in nature and a shared love of moving through life; dance as a fundamental tool to express our humanity, explore commonalities of experience through examining the body’s response to issues and emotions, ultimately finding deeper connection within ourselves and our communities. Arguably, most dancers have always shared an understanding and love of embodiment and Elly is absolutely thrilled that this conference is connecting humans across the globe, allowing us to share in this incredible embodied movement revolution.