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Choreographer
Niharika Senapati
Filmmaker
Pippa Samaya
Performer
Niharika Senapati
Music
Niharika Senapati
Supported by: Asialink Arts & Creative Victoria, Australia; Pickle Factory Dance Foundation, India
About the Film
This weight is not mine
These expectations
Placed on me
On the body into which I was born
By traditions built
Over history
Into societies
Ruled by men
This body is not yours
To command or own
To pillage or plunder
To sell or steal
These legs were not made this strong
Simply to please your eyes
This film is a signal
That change is in the air
A beacon to empower
To reclaim
To heal
To awaken
And to rise up
We can be more than this.
Other Credits
Dressing Actors – Sangram Mukhopadhyay, Avinaba Sarkar
Production Assistant – Aopala Banerjee
Niharika Senapati, Choreographer
Niharika Senapati is a first-generation Australian with Indian heritage. She trained as a contemporary dancer and describes her practice to be suspended between multiple roles of performer, collaborator, teacher, maker, sound designer, and rehearsal assistant. She most recently joined Dancenorth in Townsville as part of their 2021 full-time ensemble. Between 2012-2018 she performed extensively with Chunky Move, under the artistic direction of Anouk van Dijk. Independently, she has lived and worked in Naarm/Melbourne with artists including Prue Lang, Belarus Free Theatre, Joel Bray, Daniel Schlusser, Steven Nicolazzo, Emma Fishwick, Rachel Arianne Ogle, and Pippa Samaya. Ultimately, Niharika loves dancing and the magic potential of an ever-changing body.
Pippa Samaya, Filmmaker
Pippa Samaya is a Berlin/Melbourne-based photographer/filmmaker with two overlapping specializations of practice: dance/movement, and humanitarian documentary.
Awards include two-time winner of the International 60 Second Dance Film Competition (Denmark/Finland), Two-time winner of an Australian Dance Award for Excellence in Dance on Film, double win at the SALON exhibit at CCP (AU), Best Film at FAD Film Festival (US), The Berlin motion picture festival (DE), the International portrait film festival(BUL), Best Music Video at the NIMA awards(AU), finalist in the National Photography Prize(AU), the Ballarat International Foto Biennale, The Association of Photographers(AOP) (UK) awards and IRIS portraiture prize (PCP).
A specialization in dance photography stemmed from the discovery that dancers provided a deeply empathetic physical vessel, which enabled her to communicate through external imagery the internal world of the human psyche.’
