This Weight is not Mine

This Weight is not Mine

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.

TWINM

Other Credits
Dressing Actors – Sangram Mukhopadhyay, Avinaba Sarkar

 

Production Assistant – Aopala Banerjee

Biographies

TWINM_Choreographer Headshot_Niharika Senapati

Niharika SenapatiChoreographer

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.

TWINM_Director Headshot_Pippa Samaya

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.’