Poet and writer Rushi Vyas hugs a tree and whispers a Sanskrit mantra to it.
He sits shirtless and reads poetry while attached by a thread to The New Oxford Annotated Bible.
He chants a mantra and performs interpretive dance to free improvisational jazz music.
These are all examples of somatic writing rituals, and it is how he taps into creativity before writing.
An American poet of Indian origin, Vyas followed his partner to Dunedin in 2019.
He is working on a PhD at the University of Otago, studying somatic ritual in writing practices.
For Vyas, ritual is a way to explore attachments to certain cultural ideas that became embedded in him in childhood.
The rituals provide a vehicle for Vyas to practise what it would be like to let go of some of those ideas.
‘‘There is a Hindi phrase which exemplifies a lot of the cultural upbringing I had — ‘log kya kahenge’, which is a rhetorical question that means ‘what will people think’.
‘‘And I think that was very much in my parents consciousness moving to the US as ‘brown people’ and not wanting to draw too much attention, not wanting to rock the boat.’’
Vyas sometimes performs his rituals in public places like a beach where people can observe.
‘‘I think it is a sort of exposure that helps me get out of that mindset of worrying too much about what people are thinking, knowing that I am just being myself.’’
Vyas will conduct a workshop on somatic writing rituals during the New Zealand Young Writers Festival.
‘‘I’m really excited to meet whoever is interested in participating.’’
The aim is to practise ‘‘doing strange things to get us out of our habituated way of thinking and to see how that translates into new creativity’’.
■ The New Zealand Young Writers Festival is produced by Dunedin Fringe Arts Trust and runs from today until October 31.
A workshop on somatic writing rituals run by Rushi Vyas is on Friday at 12.30pm at Writers Block, 26 Princes St.
Visit youngwritersfest.nz for details.
