Tessa Olson

Specializes in: Dance, Viola

Education: Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Tessa Olson is an independent choreographer, dancer, teacher, videographer, visual artist, and musician. Based in Chicago, they teach dance with Chicago School of Musical Arts and served as an apprentice in Red Clay Dance Company’s Making the Artivist program. They graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in May 2025 with a BFA in Dance. Passionate about community action, Tessa co-founded the makesmewanna art collective, a registered student organization on the UIUC campus. They have additional training from Bates Dance Festival, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and DanceWorks Chicago. They served as the dance documentation intern at Bates Dance Festival and are now the Video Producer and Editor at American Dance Festival. Tessa is an avid choreographer and premiered their sixth collegiate work in October Dance 2024 at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Most recently, they returned to their alma mater, York High School, as a guest choreographer, and performed an original solo in Common Ground at The Rooted Space.