A dark foyer, and we step onward into a dark space as we arrive for this Festival opening work. An experience that promises to push us into ourselves and to open some cracks in our own lives. That asks us to lean in, to feel the flicker of nerves as they refire.  I am a little nervous. Is this a fear? Should I worry? Anxiety and mental health are in our world and real… Is this going to be confronting? I expect to be touched by memory.

A beautiful Wiata and an explanatory introduction in the comforting control of Moana Ete set the stage for a journey with a cast of individuals who meld the fluidity of experience and knowledge to absolutely command the living histories of their bodies in space and time.

The therapeutic power of Mythosoma is palpable. An episodic structure presents a tight lyrical quartet,  a mesmerising and plaintive solo (Georgie Goater), a thought-provoking duet using seamless and earthed partnering (Caleb Heke and Nancy Wijohn)  and a humorous ‘class ‘ led by Moana Ete   – “ no one is here because they are fine” – with personalities and behaviour we relate to and smile with. Well-being is a word that has moved centre stage in our social lives, and we are constantly aware of the inconstant environment that now envelops communities, families and society. Mythosoma moves through space both in reality and emotionally, allowing us to recognise vulnerability and letting us breathe, imprinting memory traces that leave us in a better place. Kelly Nash, director & choreographer, has worked with a keen eye and empathy. Caleb Heke and Georgie Goater share a duet that is truly boneless. Nancy Wijohn is a powerful independent spirit, and  Moana Ete connects, informs and nurtures.

Design by Rob Larsen and Maddison Tumataroa brings an array of light,  colour and diversity that constantly creates changing perspectives as the work progresses. Projection is effective and shadowy, with shape patterns and faces speaking to us. The textures and layering of costumes relate to the experiences we are sharing.

We are returned to our own worlds and to go out into the night. I feel better for being at Mythosoma and for sharing these stories of wholeness. Thank you to Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts – this is a brave and personal opening work that will indeed linger in our own silences.

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Mythosoma presented by Body Island – Motu Tinana is part of the Aotearoa New Zealand Arts Festival. As the title suggests, it explores the concept that mythology lives in the body, in the somatic depths of collective unconscious memory. The work also highlights the idea that trauma settles into the bones.

Kelly Nash and Nancy Wijohn co-direct Body Island and ConTact C.A.R.E Central (their physical therapy practice). Both whakapapa Māori, they are committed to “interdisciplinary works exploring healing, embodied memory and indigenous storytelling”. They have brought together a skilled cast and crew of Māori, Pākehā, Wiilman and Yued mobs. [More]

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“Ko te kotahi te hā.”

Mythosoma opens and the audience is invited into an intimate exploration of the body with the breath of life sung about and celebrated in a rush of electronic music. We move from this to dance and a soliloquy which on the surface seems like a retelling of the creation myth and the separation of Rangi and Papa but layered with other meanings: meditations on modern life, motherhood, queer and indigenous body sovereignty.

Early on, Mythosoma performers make statements about what the dance-theatre piece will or will not be. There are moments of beauty here, of discomfort and, in a mostly sombre and reflective piece, there is occasionally humour. But any sense that this means the audience will be guided through it must be quickly abandoned. You are asked to let the vignettes wash over you.

In communicating the disorientation of trauma, the disconnected moments are a carefully curated mode for exploring this theme.

The two navigation points you are given are stated in the portmanteau title of the work. It offers two simultaneous ways of understanding being in a world and being in a body. These too are the key threads of the work. Mythos, as in storytelling, lives, real and fiction, and soma, drawing on somatic trauma theory. It makes deep sense to me as a disabled person, someone whose body deviates from the norm, that there is rich ground for exploration in the space between these two things and yet they sat uncomfortably with me.

If the piece is an invitation to reflect on one’s own embodiment, then it certainly prompted this in me and will no doubt do the same for any audience member. We have successfully made individual bodies, minds their own frontier for exploration. Trauma, of course, is a disruption of connection in a social sense and a disruption of continuity in a narrative sense.

Theatre is always a simultaneously collective and individual experience, and I can see individualising experience being one intent of the work. However, there is something particularly dislocating about having a supposed collective experience while reflecting that my impressions of the work and internal conversations with it are likely to be distinctly different from those around me.

The work is interested in disruption, “rupture”, and deviation from the norm. The programme describes this as “shock”. In some ways, this is natural territory for these performers to explore, their bodies in their own ways marked out against the norm. However, the space they move in still seems to assume a norm to start from and then that there is a norm to be wrenched away from. I sit outside of this norm everyday and so I have to build my own. For all the interesting space this work traverses, it leaves me with a question about what comes next, what comes after these moments, how are they integrated into new ways of being in the world?

I sat in a new wheelchair (a new extension to my body, replacing a previous one) feeling particularly aware of the ways my body does or does not move, of the ways I am reliant on technology and on other people (sometimes literally) to move through the world. From this vantage point, I felt that the sense of connection, collective and repair could have been more closely explored.

I watched people who have trained their (apparently able) bodies for self-expression and felt I could only speak part of their language as they moved smoothly through space. 

As a life-long disabled person, my experience of an ‘othered’ embodiment is less one of trauma and more one of deviation from the norm in an ordinary, everyday way rather than anything sudden. So while I could appreciate its aesthetics and intent, there were ways I felt beyond the frame of a work I had expected to be in easier conversation with.

Your conversation will be different again. It will be your own.

Show photography – Nick George

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Mythosoma. As I unpack the title, I find that ‘soma’ means ‘living in its wholeness’, so I take the word literally and ask: is it a myth that the body is living in wholeness, as our vulnerabilities plead for care and healing?

A pulsing beat and a vocalist singing a waiata behind a smoky scrim, projected with ragged horizontal static lines, begins the work. A fabulous mystical effect encloses the vocalist and introduces two other performers who gently support each other in a seated position on a plinth.

Moana Ete, the musician and storyteller, begins with a rapture of spirited waiata, then explains what we might be seeing. Perhaps it could be connected to shock and disassociation. It’s not one story but many. A combination of how our body responds to and navigates in, through and around trauma, change, anxiety, grief and the foibles of life. As explained, our body is an archive. It loops and spirals through time and melts into places and spaces. 

She introduces the performers and the aspects of our body they will connect to, as a medium for exploring our bones, skin, and nerves. 

Jada Narkle, Caleb Heke, Nancy Wijohn and Georgia Goater maturely, artfully and sensitively do just that. These responsible, ethnically rich with varied movement and therapy-based backgrounds are talented dancers who demonstrate contemplative, satisfying movement qualities, dynamic partnering, and a dedication to sharing their skills through investigated dance theatre. 

Creatures of our imagination are pulsing with irregular, erratic shivering movements, emphasised by leaves and branches attached to limbs. Revealing their heads, a quartet ensues. 

Nash’s choreography is unique, inspiring, intelligent and very easy to consume. It’s sprinkled generously with gestures, often subtle and hardly noticeable as they speak and connect to the flow of the movement. 

Ete is again behind the scrim of cleverly covered moth-like images, explaining and suggesting that through her story, we will observe well-adjusted people dancing! A tongue-in-cheek comment for sure, as who is really well adjusted? 

A blue-clad body spotlit, possibly Georgia Goater, folds, hovers, shaping the contours of body and space, rising in explanation of… I’m not quite sure. But it doesn’t matter, as the movement captures me, draws me into its form, levels and directions. I’m dancing with her. 

Clever lighting displays other performers pacing behind her, moving in and out of the light, offering snippets of identification.

Maddison Tumataroa, as costume collaborator, has performers wear an eclectic mix of modified street clothes. They are uniquely layered and shuffled up to present beautifully movable pieces that capture and reflect the light, enhancing this work with creative distinction. 

A small change in pace as we are welcomed back … “to our 40-day fast!” A humorous jibe at the wellness world as the performers are asked to make their way onto the floor as a singular cell. We laugh at the delightful mockery of a retreat that delivers, well, everything you need!

Ete, in facilitator mode, humorously says it’s all about control, release, release the trauma! 

A storm comes, and change appears. The technologies are excellent and embellish the necessary moods and location. Night sounds, the sounds of breath, beautifully motivated movement, crisp and clean. A pulsating solo seamless in transitions from standing to floor, perhaps representing our skin. Snake-like, accumulating, durable, and flexible, Caleb Heke’s performance is stunning. Heke is then ‘saved’ and now supported in a duo with Nancy Wijohn, a guided ragdoll-like section where Wijohn dictates how and where they are placed next, a sense of controlled nurturing. 

I like the silly group conversation, “yeah,nah, yeah, nah, yeah”, poking fun at us Te whānau o Aotearoa; do we know what we present to know, or do we think we know, and we don’t?!

I learn that our brains distort what is trauma and anxiety. Some of this work is based on somatic trauma therapies, whereby the practice uses physical sensations and the nervous system, rather than just talk therapies, to ease issues. 

I see lifting and releasing actions, an internal monologue to dispel and move forward, perhaps. Projected on three large panels upstage, versions of a distorted face telling stories, are they good enough? 

The piece continues, and I watch swirling, turning, releasing and talking bodies. Exchanges of weight and hugs lift the unison movement as one. 

A concept realised is that of a counsellor or psychiatrist working with a person, and the juxtaposition of the dancers’ shapeshifting, unlocking games and unspoken narratives inside us all. I notice multiple interpretations of the concepts and ideas shared. There is symbolism of pasts and roots unravelling, playing and unplaying; we are just people. 

Nearing the end, we see a hands-on massage-like physical manipulation to heal and encourage, to restore and return the person to life. Ete, our storyteller, is returned to themselves, well, a version of themselves perhaps. 

Mythosoma is a bold yet sensitive traverse across traumas, tremors and the healing of the human spirit through flawlessly crafted dance theatre. A fabulous addition to the 2026 Festival of the Arts.

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