Dotted Bodies is such an uncanny piece, fiction and documentary mixed. You cannot tell what to believe and what to doubt. This is the first time I came across such a mystery dance film. Where were you inspired from? How much of this is fiction and how much is documentary?
Dotted Bodies is an amalgamation of accidental discoveries, truths and the power of recreation through dance. The film is a documentary based on a real story, experienced by the dancers in the film.
We started with a photo project and the aim was to capture how melancholy seeps into our movements; we never intended to make a film at this stage. We were lucky enough to work with some really amazing dancers and during the course of the project and amidst hundreds of conversations, this story came up. The story of these dancers and what they faced, felt and experienced a few years ago on a strange, foreign stage. The story stayed with us, but then again, we never thought we could churn it into a film. It was only later while going through all the footage from our shoots late at three am, spending hours staring into the screen and studying each and every sway of the hand and flicker of the eye, that the two puzzle pieces (the dancers’ story and the same dancers’ movements years later) fell together and we decided to make a film.