Olive Bieringa is a dance, performance and visual artist working at the intersection of social and creative practice, pedagogy, and healing.
Born in Aotearoa, she is a first generation New Zealander of European Jewish descent educated in the Netherlands, UK, Germany and the USA. She moved to Oslo in 2017 from USA where she was based for twenty years.
She holds a BA in dance from European Dance Development Center in the Netherlands and completed her MFA in Performance and New Media at Long Island University in Brooklyn, NY. She is a Registered ISMETA Somatic Movement Therapist, Somatic Movement Dance Therapist and a Certified Teacher of Body-Mind Centering®, Shiatsu practitioner and DanceAbility teacher, working with performers of all abilities. She is the Program Director for Somatic Education Australasia’s Body-Mind Centering® program in Melbourne, Australia. She is currently a Doctoral Candidate in Dance at UniArts, Helsinki.
As a dancer, maker and educator her work has been profoundly influenced by teachers and collaborators including Otto Ramstad, Lisa Nelson, Margit Galanter, Deborah Hay, Benoit Lachambre, Steve Paxton, Eva Karczag, and founder of Body-Mind Centering® Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen.
She is a recipient of Kulturrådet artist stipend in 2022, Oslo Kommune stipdendium in 2020, a Foundation for Contemporary Art Fellowship in 2015 and a McKnight Foundation Fellowship in 2010.
Olive teaches internationally in Body-Mind Centering® trainings and dance programs such as Somatic Education Australasia, Melbourne, Moveus, Germany, Leben Nuvoa, Italy, Moving from Within and Sonder, USA, Norwegian Theater Academy, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Praxis, Oslo, Impulstanz Festival, Vienna, Movement Research, NYC, SEEDS Festival, Earthdance, Massachusetts, Wayne State University, Detroit, Winona State University, Carleton College, Minnesota, and for dance companies Lyon Opera Ballet, Footnote Dance, Touch Compass, New Zealand, Axis Dance Company, California and Young Dance, Minneapolis.
She is currently on the board of PRAXIS Oslo where she programs and produces. Past curatorial projects include art, ecology and science collaborations such as St Paul’s City Art Collaboratory and SEEDS Festival, improvisational performance events and festivals and dance film festivals.
Her writings appear in numerous online publications and the following books: Meandering Methodologies, Deviant Disciplines — Four Years of City Art Collaboratory from Public Art Saint Paul, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Site Dance: Choreographers and the Lure of Alternate Spaces from University of Florida Press.