Amrita Hepi: In Rhythm with ONDINE

There is a certain gravity to Amrita Hepi. A choreographer and dancer of Bundjalung (Australia) and Ngāpuhi (New Zealand) heritage, she is an artist whose practice stretches across dance, performance, video, and installation. Her work, often shifting between intimacy and spectacle, investigates the body’s role as a vessel for memory, identity, and cultural narratives.

It is this blend of intellectual rigor and instinctual grace that made Amrita the perfect muse for our ONDINE collection campaign. Against the raw beauty of Aotearoa’s west coast, Amrita translates ONDINE’s sculptural forms into a living movement and grounds the campaign with a meditative body-scan, an invitation to catch our breath.

ONDINE explores themes of ritual and rhythm, our relationship to the natural world, and the transcendent. It was with these ideas in mind that we sat down with Amrita, in the midst of a schedule that spans continents, collaborations, and constant creation, to talk about her creative practice, relationship to ritual, and the elemental pull of nature.

The Elemental Pull

Nature is more than a backdrop for Amrita’s work — it is a collaborator. From the wind-swept shores to the rhythmic crashing of waves, the environment informs her movements, grounding each performance in place and presence. Through this lens, ONDINE is not just a collection of sculptural forms, but a meditation on harmony, flow, and the subtle forces that connect us to the earth.

One of the things we’ve thought a lot about as part of ONDINE is the idea of ritual. What practices in your life feel ritualistic, whether through the body, breath, or the way you prepare to move or create?

My rituals tend to be quite mundane, like finding where the water is in a new place, resetting my wardrobe or chucking things out if I’m feeling stressed, eating the same thing every morning in a new place when I’m in a kind of mini routine. And then in regards to preparing to move or make something, I don’t know if it’s a ritual but I have to get myself into a zone whereby I am kind of tricking myself into thinking: “I am just taking notes, I am just moving to sense things out, this is just a few small words, moves, a sketch,” in order to get myself to begin with lots of options and an intimacy without creating a pressure cooker of an environment. It’s simultaneously focused and also can look like dithering or distraction in the beginning. And miraculously I repeat this focused/distracted dance a lot, hence maybe it’s now a ritual.

Donec ut leo et leo laoreet vulputate in feugiat elit.

What aspects of filming the campaign and wearing the collection resonated with you, and how did they connect to your sense of movement and style?

Being in Aotearoa, one of my homes, and taking part in a Karakia [a traditional Māori prayer to invoke spiritual guidance and protection] at the start of shooting, and of course, I loved the earrings I got to wear. They felt like they would stay put even if I was moving a lot. I always think dancers have great style, and I have always said my own style is lazy with elegant aspirations (or fast and relaxed), so I love jewellery that can stick with me, that I can forget about until I put it on in the morning and it makes me smile. That doesn’t get stuck in my hair, that I can swim in, run in, and that lives on me and with me.

Donec ut leo et leo laoreet vulputate in.Donec ut leo et leo laoreet vulputate in feugiat

The Art of Presence

Through her collaboration with ONDINE, Amrita Hepi reminds us that jewelry is more than an accessory — it is an extension of movement, memory, and intention. Her practice illuminates the power of ritual, the dialogue between body and environment, and the quiet poetry found in thoughtful design. In ONDINE, form and flow converge, inviting us to move, breathe, and experience beauty in motion.