Olivier Patey studied at the Ecole de Danse de l’Opéra national de Paris, then at the Royal Ballet School in London.
At the age of sixteen he joined the Paris Opera Ballet and was soon given soloist roles. He has worked with George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Roland Petit, among others. In 1983, Olivier Patey was promoted to Premier Danseur and was chosen by Rudolf Nureyev to interpret Franz in Coppélia.
In 2000, he became Deputy Artistic Director and Chief Ballet Master of the Staatstheater Braunschweig, and in 2013, he became Master of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen.
During his career as a dancer, Olivier Patey has shared the stage with the greatest stars: Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Vladimir Vasiliev, Ekaterina Maximova, Natalia Bessmertnova and Nina Ananiashvili of the Bolshoi, who recently invited him to Tbilisi to teach at the National Ballet of Georgia.
Olivier Patey has been a member of numerous international competition juries since 1995 (Moscow, Paris, Tokyo).
It is on his initiative that Pathé-Live provides live broadcasts of the Bolshoi ballets to more than a thousand cinemas around the world.