Mirror Within

Longevity in Dance: Elixir on Digital Stage

Mirror Within

Mirror Within is a new collaboration between Shakila Taranum Maan and Nahid Siddiqui commissioned by Sadlers Wells as part of their Longevity in Dance: Elixir on Digital Stage programme. This short film is a progression of their ongoing dialogue, representing Siddiqui’s concept of the Mirror Within as she practices the art of Kathak.

When Nahid Siddiqui approached me to make a short film on her for Sadlers Wells ‘Elixir on Digital Stage’, I jumped at the chance and images immediately began to form in my mind.

Nahid and I started to talk to each other daily as we only had weeks to put the project together. We began with big ideas including Nahid’s development of the dance form itself. We talked about her as a British Pakistani; we talked about her recent experiences of being in Pakistan and living there during Covid; artists with no safety nets were driven to poverty and worse. We talked about how artists are perceived within the South Asian community, particularly the Pakistani community, what does dance mean to them, if anything at all.

This sparked a memory for me as I had wanted to look at women’s position in the sub-continent and within the British Asian context. One such community that has impacted women in the sub-content significantly are the Afghans. When the Taliban recently returned to power, it was clear that their war against women was going to continue and strengthen. They had learnt how to use the media and even weaponize it.  Women refusing to wear the Burkha would be punished by their eldest male relative being imprisoned. The black Burkha that had been introduced via the Middle East (it comes in separate sections allowing women some freedom of movement, but it remains stifling, with the heavy fabric inducing heat etc.), replacing the blue cotton rich Burkha which was cooler often referred to as the ‘shuttlecock’ but is now being forced upon women. This does not allow them to have their hands to be outside of the garment; they are forced to be covered from head to toe in a loose fabric with a square crochet panel to look through.

The recent events in Iran have since further enforced the significance of women being forced to cover their bodies in order to desexualise them.  The murder of Masha Amini by the Morality police and of Hadis Najafi, a young 20-year-old soon after was a stark reminder of the fragile nature of women within states whose foundations are religion. It is clear that there needs to be a call out globally to separate religion from state. The urgency of this is critical and I am certain we will see many more such women and men who are currently protesting risk their lives.

I only had 10 minutes max to put these ideas across coupled with the challenges of a tiny budget – how what this going to be possible? I had to shoot on location and took the opportunity to put this to Nahid; that we would film outside, we embrace nature and shoot in the fields, forests, hill sides and by riverbanks. Although Sadlers Wells had offered their studio, shooting outside meant that I did not have to design the lighting and that I was challenging myself to create frames using nature as the backdrop. Nahid immediately agreed. The shoot dates unfortunate fell in the hottest week that the UK had known since records began and some days, we were shooting in 36 degrees heat! On two occasions we were lucky to be by a river draped with weeping willows and woodlands which gave us shade and saved us from the baking heat.

In the pre-production, I spent a weekend with Nahid where we threw ideas at each other – I wanted to explore light and shade, and we agreed to explore the body as a shadow. We called it our shadow dance section.

We discussed colours and agreed on red, black, blue, purple, and yellow. We talked about the depth and sharpness of colours, and we knew that the blue had a be a deep sky blue; I wanted this against the green of leaves and grass. The yellow was an earth yellow, a deep purple I wanted to use against the parched grass that was not a dirty brown, and the black was obviously a ‘kodak’ black!

I found a river in Iver, Bucks, the hill at the Northala Fields off the A40 near Southall, and a wild path in the back of the woods in Hillingdon. The seed was planted by Nahid when she said that Kathak is nature, and the sound of the ankle bells evoke the chirping and flight of birds”.

The river was chosen for the ‘blue’ sequence. Although the sequence is short, it was important for it to be impactful for me to visualise the Burkha and the Chaador. Nahid was in blue from head to toe. As she stood amongst the weeping willow, she wrapped herself tightly with the blue cloth. Her face, hands, body disappeared.  She began to look like a shroud. She tilted to her right and this was so striking, we immediately explored it – I told her to more slowly to her left and then in the edit I was able to emphasis the disassociation with jump cuts bringing out the melancholy of the sequence. Nahid then held her hands out and opened the fabric to display the Chaador and said “no one does with a Chaador – not like this, it cannot happen – “ishara kafi hai” – meaning those who see this shot will understand its significance; its defying comment.

Nahid had asked Hassan Mohyeddin to compose the music for the film. Her brief to him was to have it as minimal as possible. Hassan’s score to the film is multi-layered but sparse; haunting and transformative helping to carve shapes, pivoting between a trance, melancholy and sounds of nature.  Editing to the beat was extremely satisfying.

I wanted to film Nahid from the back as much as I could throughout – it’s fascinating how the back shoulders, neck, spine speaks, guides the viewer to closer to the subject and proposes a different understanding of the character. I explained the parameters of the frame and as Nahid formed the shapes, she kissed the edges of the frame with her fingertips, elbows and with slight movements of her body.

It was very clear to me that since I made A Thousand Borrowed Eyes in 1996, Nahid had moved deeper into her understanding of Kathak and its relationship to nature. She has been working on a book and developing her philosophy of the dance form and clearly linking it to nature.

”A dancer is a painter, a sculpture, a mathematician, and a creeper; exactly like a creeper has to be directed to grow, the dancer through the hard work and strict training carves the path of her destination – nature is our Guru”. Nahid Siddiqui

Like in A Thousand Borrowed Eyes, ‘Mirror Within’ gave me the opportunity to push myself and capitalise on the location’s potential. I had wanted to film Nahid against a delicious golden setting sun, but as the temperatures were so high, the setting sun presented its light as an extremely white burning light; I used this to show the edges of her body breaking and lines being like ‘noise’ that looked like they too danced.

The sun also helped us with strong shadows for our ‘Shadow Dance’ where we used the river and Nahid’s reflection within it; Nahid created a dance sequence lasting 5 minutes with grace and used the water as her partner with small darting around; dragon flies creating rings that by accident synchronized with the music.

For the ‘yellow’ sequence Nahid wanted to present a very traditional form of Kathak dance, where she depicted a woman embellishing herself; putting Kajol in her eyes, colour on lips, a tikka on her forehead, bangles on her hands and so on. I placed a mirror in the hedges by the side of woodland for this sequence. By chance a small shaft of light fell on Nahid’s forehead that she called her third eye – she used this to accentuate her movements depicting the embellishment.

In the last shot, Nahid wanted to emulate the sequence from A Thousand Borrowed eyes as she walked away from the gaze of the viewer. Here Nahid wore yellow and was draped in deep purple fabric which contrasted with the sun burnt grassland. Nahid’s vocal play out in another worldly manner lingering on much after the film ended.

Play the film:

Mirror Within – Nahid Siddiqui – Commissioned by Sadler’s Wells – Longevity in Dance: Elixir on Digital Stage (sadlerswells.com)

Credits

Dancer/Choreographer – Nahid Siddiqui

Music – Hassan Mohyeddin

Camera – Shamim Bhatti

Production Still – Nabila C Maan

Production Assistant – Sehur Chowdhary

Researcher – Cecile Scaros

Director/Editor – Shakila Taranum Maan

Commissioned by Sadler’s Wells © 2022

Sadler’s Wells Digital Stage presents Longevity in Dance, an eclectic mix of bold, playful and poignant films and interviews that challenge perceptions of dance and age.

The full programme includes commissions featuring Internationally acclaimed artists Charlotta Öfverholm, Nahid Siddiqui, José Losada Santiago, and showcases new films by award winning choreographer and director Eleesha Drennan, Sadler’s Wells Company of Elders and a fly on the wall documentary about iconic dancers Malou Airaudo and Germaine Acogny.

This beautiful collection looks at what makes us spark, the passing of time, our connection with nature, and the legacy we pass on. It’s a celebration of life through dance, and the inherent desire to keep on dancing.

https://www.sadlerswells.com/digital-stage/longevity-in-dance-elixir-on-digital-stage/