WOMAN OF WORDS – ROYAL NEW ZEALAND BALLET

Woman of Words is a newly created biographical dance work, celebrating the extraordinary life of Katherine Mansfield. 

‍

Exploring her personal stories, the work sees the world through Katherine’s eyes in a series of epistolary moments, gathered from letters to her closest friends and loved ones. 

Katherine’s intense, captivating and all too short life is brought to the stage using dance, text, colour and sound. Beginning with her early years growing up in Wellington, to the height of London bohemia and the Bloomsbury group, to her death at the age of thirty-four, Woman of Words chronicles Katherine’s journey and her passion for creativity, love, and life. 

The performance opens with Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain, set to composer Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel. Since its premiere, this haunting pas de deux has become associated with significant moments in dancers’ lives, its elegiac and meditative mood moving for performers and audience alike. 

‍