Olivera Ilić (1952) grew up in Novi Sad, Serbia where she completed a natural sciences high school and the Theatre school – ballet department. She came to Maribor in 1970. Throughout her ballet soloist career she dance major leading and soloist roles in ballet and opera performances that were on the repertoire of the Slovenian National Theatre in Maribor. She appeared at many concerts in Maribor, Ljubljana, Nova Gorica and Novi Sad. She is the recipient of the youth award Golden Bird. During her active dancing career she was teaching ballet at the primary and secondary ballet schools in Maribor and at the same time she graduated from the Faculty of Education – fine arts. As a jury member she participated at the First Yugoslav Ballet Competition in Belgrade. In Slovenia she was the jury president of the first and the fourth state ballet competition under the auspices of TEMSING.

After twenty years of active dancing for a year she led the ballet company in Maribor and started to work as an assistant, first for ballet performances, later on for opera performances as well.

She graduated from the Faculty of Education in Ljubljana, department of social pedagogy. At the Faculty of Education in Maribor she is the head lecturer of Didactics of dance education. In cooperation with the Teaching Institute she held seminars for educators and teachers all throughout Slovenia. For one year she taught Didactics to trainees at the higher ballet school in Ljubljana. She acquired her master's degree in social sciences at the Faculty of Arts, Maribor.