Please join us for a performance by dancer Oliver Connew in response to our exhibition reception with Yukari 海堀 Kaihori and Alex Laurie.
Upcoming Event
Oliver Connew, courtesy of the artist
Oliver Connew is a choreographer, dancer and occasional writer, among other things. In the studio and on stage he explores dance, somatic practices and choreographic strategies that form and deform the body as an ecological entity.
Connew will develop a performance in response to Kaihori and Laurie's artworks and installations in reception and the immediate environment of the gallery, drawing on his interest in diffuse and porous bodies/spaces and the potential, or magic, of improvised dance making.
All welcome! Please contact director@blueoyster.org.nz if you have any accessibility requirements.
Oliver Connew
Oliver's dance education began at age 10, leading him to study classical ballet at the New Zealand School of Dance and contemporary dance at Unitec, Tāmaki Makaurau. For over a decade he worked as a dancer and performer in Europe with Peter Pleyer, Body Cartography, Wilhelm Groener, Joshua Rutter and July Weber, among others. He is a member of the Berlin-based dance ensemble Cranky Bodies a/company. In 2021, he completed the Master Exerce programme in choreographic research at the Centre Chorégraphique National Montpellier, France. Alongside his choreographic and dance work, Oliver is a trained Somatic Movement Educator with Body-Mind Centering®. He recently returned to Aotearoa and is now living in Ōtepoti.
Yukari 海堀 Kaihori
Yukari 海堀 Kaihori (Japan/Aotearoa) is an artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau working on her Doctoral degree at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland. She explores the complex relationships between people, objects and non-human others using things collected hyper-locally for the site-specific installation projects. Drawing on Japanese folk animism, her work concerns non-human others living in the more-than-human world and the immediacy of mundane places. Recent exhibitions include: Remains ♾️ ( Kamiyama, Japan, 2024), Two Inches off the Ground (Grace, 2024), two sides of the moon (Te Tuhi, 2023), Touching Time (Audio Foundation, 2022), wiggling together, falling apart (Michael Lett, 2022), The Moon and the Pavement (The Physics Room with Ashburton Art Gallery, 2022).
Alex Laurie
Alex Laurie is an artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau. His previous exhibitions include Augur of Mercury with Sophia Laurie (Grace, 2024), The Person (Coastal Signs, 2022), List with Sophia Laurie (Cathedral Cabinet, 2019) and Aggrieved Weaklings (Gus Fisher Gallery, 2018).