Christchurch Invitation

How do we speak? What messages do we send out, even unconsciously? We can take three elements: the words you use, your tone of voice, and your body language, and reflect that it's the record of the words spoken that have been held up to history as most significant. E.M.Forster asked "How can I know what I think until I see what I say?" But it's those other two – tone and body – that may sometimes convey far more than the words themselves.

I think it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who offered the insight that, "What you are speaks so clearly that I cannot hear what you say."

Can we learn to "speak" more effectively even without using words? At Hagley Theatre School that's a powerful part of the acting course under Director, Pedro Ilgenfritz.

Pedro’s theatre journey began in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, down towards the border with Uruguay. A time towards the end of dictatorships so his father rightly cautioned the dangers of voicing your beliefs. In times of suspicion about the mechanisms and the reach of power it's necessary to remind yourself that, "You may not know who's listening."

So Pedro travelled, learning from circus and clowns and mime; then of what the body could say and teach without words, through Physical Theatre, masks, and the techniques of Jacques Lecoq.

Now, as the Theatre School's Director, his students in the acting programme are challenged in so many ways to use these techniques to construct theatre that speaks to the urgent issues we face; issues that politicians seem to fail to address and that can leave us feeling impotent.

One focus in these podcasts is on identity and the importance, maybe necessity, in these testing times of knowing who you are.

The value is real. One young man from a university background as a scientist explained his presence on the acting course: "I want to discover who I am.”

Is unemployment just a necessary consequence of economic reality or more like a moral choice? Do political differences mean you can’t sit and talk together? What might a recognition of local knowledge and abilities bring that central government might not? 

Garry Moore “ran out of excuses” against standing for Mayor of Christchurch; was elected, and served for three terms (1998 to 2007). Here we talk about the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs and the power and connections of localism and the talents that surround us, to effect real change. About speaking across political divides; and the moral failure of unemployment that can remove a sense of belonging and purpose from those who are left behind.

About Gary’s practice, as mayor, of bringing a chair to the Cathedral Square so he could listen to people’s concerns and and act on them. And "The Tuesday Club" as a place for the vital conversations of active citizenship.

And we mention, too, the coming tenth-anniversary of the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks – an event of global significance. 

All of our stories invite questions, because history isn’t just about what happened; it’s what gets recorded and retold. It’s about what we see and the assumptions we make. What we learn and the opportunities that arise.

So we can ask ‘who is visible in our communities and who is not?’ And today our kōrero is about creating spaces for those with intellectual disabilities; for their voices and stories, through dance.

Lyn Cotton is Artistic Director of Jolt – a dance practice that’s all about inclusion. At Jolt the intellectual disabilities of the dancers are not a limiting thing; they’re an invitation – for them to lead audiences on a creative journey through openness and awareness. You see this in the performances of the dancers and their mutual connections on a deeper level, where the eye contact is strong and the movement of one is not imposed on another. Where touch is subtle.

With Jolt came the realisation that inclusion without leadership was not enough. This prompted the creation of ‘Move’ – a space for the dancers to become teachers, leaders, working both with others with disabilities and, very importantly, with people in schools and other ‘mainstream’ places.

Lyn started working with people with disabilities in London, under the guidance of the late Wolfgang Stange. His credo was that “You’re never too disabled, too blind, too old or too proud to be able to perform.”

You can learn more about Jolt and Move at https://www.joltdance.co.nz/about

What do we see here – those of us who arrive in New Zealand as migrants?  And what do we bring? 

The Pacific is vast, but in terms of migration, South America is like a near neighbour to us. Sol Gill grew up in Bogotá, Colombia, 2,600 metres above sea level and in a country more than four times the size of NZ . That urban upbringing was enriched and deepened beyond the city, at her grandmother's farm where the meat and cheese you ate, and the milk you drank weren't remote – Sol learned what it means to produce food from the field to the table.

Arriving here with no command of English but with a strong sense of discipline and drive, Sol saw real opportunities. She's worked and studied and now looks to give back and to support others. as an independent consultant and as a member of Christchurch's Multi-Cultural Advisory Group.

The Youth Parliament comes every three years. Young, politically minded individuals, nominated by, yet not representing, MPs from across the country. Each with the issues they want to speak to. In 2025, one part of Hineātea Alexander’s focus was on equity and justice. 

Here, she talks of growing up around strong people; of precious time with her tāua (her grandmother) and her pāua (her grandfather). That time included travelling around the North Island in a house-bus, hearing stories of the places they were passing through and of her tua's marae.

The Youth Parliament means interacting with different opinions and trying to see from another person's perspective. That's not always easy but, for Hinetea, "a good debate should not be entered into in bad faith" and the issues that concern young people include serious struggles and the sense that these are not being taken seriously enough.

If the future is where the young will spend the most time living in then what are we prepared to hear from them?

We build our nations on memory but no country has a pain-free history. Yet what we choose to remember is wrapped in political perspectives, in questions of identity, and in ways of seeing. “Memory is politics. It’s a choice,” says Anne Talsnes. 

Anne is the Senior Advisor to the 22 July Centre in Oslo, Norway – a centre established to carry forward the work of memory and learning from the 2011 terror attacks in that country.

On that date in July, 77 people were killed in a terror attack that took place, firstly outside the government buildings in Oslo, and then on the island of Utøya. Eight people were killed in Oslo itself and a further 69 at a youth camp on the island. 

With New Zealand’s experience in 2019 of a terrorist attack in Christchurch it’s important to listen to those who’ve had to find their way out of these blood-stained pathways. 

Anne joined us in Christchurch in March 2026 for our Unity Summit. We talk here on the learnings that society can share, and she offers some of her own reflections from her visit here, especially on the question of responsibilities towards those who live amongst us with incredible grief.

The bar-tailed godwit weighs just 300grms. From New Zealand, each year, they double their weight to fly to the Yellow Sea, then to Alaska. In Spring they return – a non-stop flight of eight or nine days; 11,000 - 12,000kms! 

Sometimes people can be born and grow up in a place but never feel entirely at ease there; instead, feel a belonging when they arrive somewhere else. It’s happened to me; certainly happened to my father.

Tanya Jenkins left Holland when she was just 19. On the world map New Zealand looked the furthest away so she headed here thinking she’d make her way back slowly. Except that this is the place where she felt at home. 

It’s been said that everyone in New Zealand can trace back to someone who travelled here, whether recently, as a migrant or a refugee, or centuries ago, in a waka, a double-hulled canoe, across the great Moana. Seen that way the Māori framing of whakapapa – of each of us having lineages and connections, even belongings, to other places and people – offers a richer way of seeing how we all can fit.

Tanya talks here about what New Zealand offers – in space and clear air and possibilities – and her work in environmental education, especially the rich lesson of the bar-tailed godwit: that tiny, profoundly impressive, migrating bird on the longest non-stop flight each year between Alaska and New Zealand – belonging here and belonging there.

How do we make spaces for others – not spaces with limits, but so that any disability in one dimension doesn’t limit big possibilities in another? What support and pathways can we create to unlock potential, create structure and belonging? 

Back in episode 5, Jeremy Faumuinā Spoke about his work as a social worker with the New Zealand Police; with his concentration on young people who have made dumb choices; and about the Pasifika (Moana) concept of the Vā and about honouring the spaces between us. 

But Jeremy is also a sports coach and he talks here about creating and building opportunities for athletes with intellectual disabilities to grow through elite sports. About the Special Olympics, and the Churchill Fellowship that'll take him to Japan, Spain and Australia to study and learn from successful models.

How do you tell people’s stories so they can say “Yes, you have heard me. That is what I want to say.” This is the second of two conversations on the development of the verbatim drama, “Memorial.” A play that, in a sense, gives permission for hard, suppressed questions about Muslims as “others” to be asked. And that speaks of loss in a way that can be understood across cultures and spaces and experiences.

In the previous episode we spoke with Arianna Gayle Stucki. Today, via zoom, Arianna is joined by the play’s co-creator, Adam Elsayigh. Together they discuss the special, even idiosyncratic, process of how this play came together. 

That process brought together a team of volunteers, transcribing the recorded interviews and listening for pauses and inflections. This was not a process that fell back on AI or any machine generation but that process itself drew in a wider circle of people affected by the stories.

The word clouds produced from the transcriptions pointed to the significance of the Māori whakatauki (or saying) on the most important thing in this world: "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata" – "It is people, it is people, it is people!"

The first of two conversations via zoom. It’s with Arianna Gayle Stucki in the USA, in discussion on how the verbatim drama "Memorial" came to be. 

We've talked about how stories get told; who tells them; and how that telling may take the story away from the one it belongs to. This is different.

In June 2019 Arianna came to NZ to listen to people who had suffered loss and great hurt in the mosque attacks; not to seek a story but to listen to people who wanted to tell their stories. Trust had to be earned and hours of words recorded and transcribed. 

Long listening and weaving together, and full collaboration, has led to a play “Memorial” – a verbatim drama crafted directly from these words. It has already spoken to other people’s experiences of loss: a family who lost their son to suicide; members of a community in Buffalo, New York who experienced a racist shooting and, further afield, to students in Beirut, Lebanon with their experience of earthquakes.

The hope is to bring it to New Zealand. In this podcast Arianna speaks to the process of how this work came about. In the next episode we'll introduce Arianna's co-creator, Adam Elsayigh and the two of them will talk more about the process of its development.