Legacies of Violence | Narratives of Movement

From tawaifs, to nauch dancers, to mujras -- the tradition of Indian women entertaining wealthy men goes back centuries, carrying through into contemporary society as the Bollywood “item girl.” The industry, valued at over 180 billion Indian rupees, produces hundreds of films each year that immortalize the item girls, objectifying them and sanitizing their realities. This misconstrues the horrors of the sex work industry, promotes sex-based discrimination and misconduct, and encourages young girls to base their perceptions of beauty, sexuality and respect off what’s on screen.

This project attempts to radicalize our understanding of bodies, commodified for enjoyment. Where do we draw the line of stigmatization? Would we respect and admire a sex worker in the way we would a Bollywood dancers? How do we differentiate them from communities who have historically used their bodies for the pleasure of others? How do we understand the enduring appeal of this art form yet the growing discrimination against the actual performers? This film is dedicated to the Sonagachi sex workers, an admired community of dancers that regularly performed in the Kolkata mansions of the Bengali elite and are now considered to be prostitutes due to post-independence socio-cultural, spatial and political shifts. I’ve interjected the Sonagachi legacies of violence into the mainstream narratives of movement in order to question societal notions of class, caste, and value. It’s meant to provoke, to unnerve, to dislodge and, ideally, to change societal stigmatization and mistreatment of working women, a double standard we see in India and beyond.

Film featured in GSD Kirkland Gallery’s exhibit PANDEMIC and accepted to 11th Annual International Small Cinemas Conference: Political Imaginaries of Small Cinemas and Cultures.