Bringing Winter’s Saga to life through gods, mortals and movement
This winter, the worlds of gods and mortals will collide at The Hannah as Wellington Community Ballet Theatre turns Norse mythology into an epic work of contemporary dance and physical theatre.
Across a six-night season, Winter’s Saga will follow the legendary paths of Loki, Odin and Thor beneath the branches of Yggdrasil. Battles will rage, heroes will rise and fall, and stories passed down over centuries will be retold through movement, costume and theatrical design.
For choreographer Joana Joy, the production is an opportunity to show how much story the body can hold.
Finding the story in the mythology
Created by choreographers Kate Avery, James Burchell, Hanna Hairil, Joana Joy and Trinity Maydon, Winter’s Saga is built around four separate Norse myths. While some characters move between them, a central figure from our world helps thread the stories together.
Joana says finding the right framework for a narrative dance production can be surprisingly difficult: too abstract and an audience may struggle to enter it; too literal and it can quickly lose its edge.
Norse mythology offered a world already filled with action, drama and recognisable human themes.
“There is enough drama and themes in these myths,” Joana says. “The overall intention was to make a show that had more of a narrative — more theatrical, more technical.”
Each choreographer chose a myth, identified its central characters and broke the story into the key dramatic beats that could be communicated through dance. Joana is tackling Ragnarök: the cataclysmic battle that brings about the destruction — and eventual renewal — of the world.
“I’m telling the myth of Ragnarök and we’re doing all this fight choreography,” she says. “I think doing these fight scenes has got us through the winter.”
Building battles and a community
Around 23 dancers are involved in the production, with some appearing throughout the full work and others choosing to commit to individual stories.
Although the choreography demands real technical and theatrical skill, the process has remained collaborative. In Joana’s Ragnarök rehearsals, dancers have been given martial arts-inspired movements and invited to create their own battle sequences in pairs.
“That part is very much the way that it is because of the work that they’ve put in,” she says. “That’s been really, really cool.”
This collaborative approach reflects what Wellington Community Ballet Theatre was established to do. Producer Shereen Capper established the company through her involvement in Wellington’s dance community, where she saw a gap between the many opportunities available to attend classes and the far fewer opportunities for adult dancers to create and perform substantial work.
“Shereen was driven by the fact that there are lots of opportunities for people to come together to do class, but not a lot of opportunities to perform,” Joana explains.
That gap is particularly significant in a city like Wellington. The capital is home to a lively community of dancers, theatre-makers and other creatives, but professional opportunities are necessarily limited — and stepping away from a professional pathway does not mean someone’s desire to perform, develop their craft or contribute creatively disappears.
Wellington Community Ballet Theatre creates a space between the recreational class and the professional company: somewhere adult community dancers can work towards ambitious productions, while emerging choreographers, designers and freelance artists gain practical experience and a platform for their ideas.
“It’s that adult, non-professional domain — what it can bring to people for their expression as part of their lives, as well as a sense of community,” Joana says.
For dancers balancing full-time jobs, families and other commitments, the group offers something rare: the chance to take their creative practice seriously without needing it to be their profession. The resulting productions are not only performance opportunities, but places where skills, confidence and lasting creative relationships can grow.
That community is evident in the rehearsal room. Sessions begin with a check-in and a gesture reflecting how each dancer is arriving that day before everyone gets into their movement for the day.
Dressing gods for battle
The scale of the mythology is also being carried through the production’s costume design, led by recent Massey University Fashion Design graduate Ella Malcolm.
A lifelong dancer, Ella explored dance, movement and the connections that form between moving bodies in her graduate honours project. After designing costumes for Kate Avery’s contribution to Wellington Community Ballet Theatre’s debut production, Four Questions, she has returned to create the costumes for Winter’s Saga.
Her first step was to look at traditional Norse illustrations before allowing the personalities of the gods to lead the designs.
“Working from the personalities of the characters, like trickster Loki and motherly Frigg, informed design elements and colour stories to further the storytelling the dancers portray,” Ella says.
Designing for dance has required a shift from her commercial fashion background. Details need to be visible from a distance, fabrics behave differently beneath stage lighting, and every costume must withstand stretching, sweat, washing and quick changes.
Even a seemingly simple blindfold required experimentation.
“The challenge of finding a fabric that is obvious enough for the audience to see, but also allows the dancer full range of eyesight and no glare, has been challenging — but we have found a solution!”
Working with garments already owned by the dancers has helped reduce the cost, while giving Ella room to create additional pieces that define each character and story. Colour has become one of her most important tools for building a cohesive world across the four myths.
For Ella, the project has offered an unusually rich opportunity to work alongside other local creatives and learn what it takes to bring a production of this scale to the stage.
“I feel incredibly privileged to work with such a team and learn the ins and outs of putting on a show in this way,” she says. “The community Shereen and the whole team have created is an incredibly rewarding one to be a part of.”
A night around the fire
Following the near sold-out Fringe season of its debut production, Four Questions, Winter’s Saga marks an ambitious next step for Wellington Community Ballet Theatre: a larger creative team, a more technically complex production and run of seven shows across six nights.
For the performers — many of whom balance rehearsals with full-time work and family life — Joana hopes the season brings a well-earned sense of achievement, along with the chance to settle into the rhythm of performing the work night after night.
For audiences, she hopes it offers the particular magic of gathering together to share a story.
“Just think about the impact of sitting together in a room for an hour as a collective, experiencing something,” she says. “Dance is non-verbal, with all the emotions that it brings up — as well as seeing people of various ages and skill levels doing something they really enjoy on stage.”
Or, to put it another way: “Rug up, come down to the theatre, then go get a hot choccy.”
The fireside tales are waiting.
Catch Wellington Community Ballet Theatre with Winter’s Saga at The Hannah from 18–23 August. Book your tickets here.