A lot of survivors are in the video…whether they talk about it or not (some didn’t want to discuss but did want to dance it out).

It felt vital to me to be superinclusive and as diverse as possible (race/religion/sexuality/gender also ableism and age: hence in utero footage through to elderly). A few at first, figuring we’d be done in December (ha!). That day, after the kitchen table breakdown, I began reaching out to friends. What was the process like? How long did it take? We tell our tales ourselves.Īnd then bring it back off the page, the screen, the stereo…and offer concrete ways to help ( all artist proceeds from the remix to charity pick your price). The idea being that we decide the frame, the angle, the dress, the dance. Especially some of those most under threat, undervalued and over-Othered.Īnd flip the ‘minority’ to the majority and create a visual world where this supposed Other is the ‘norm’.Īnd on our terms: the video was filmed mostly on cellphones, by participants (The We) themselves, all over the world, over the course of a year. An opportunity to rise up: honor–and showcase the amazing work of–our communities.

Do the very thing I told them in order to comfort them and hold the hope: Make a little piece of positive force.Īnd I started thinking, this DIY worldwide dance could itself be political. After a morning spent ramblingly assuring my stunned daughters (then 11 and 7) that things were going to be okay, that a positive force always rises up to push back, transform the negative (and their beloved Tia Pamela in Mexico wasn’t going to be banned to the other side of that ‘wall’)…and then the tears I cried at the kitchen table by myself after dropping them off to school… I felt I had to do something. And deepened one morning in 2016-that of the US election result (though Nirbhaya was two years before, unfortunately it all seemed part of the same abominable continuum). We were mulling over what the next video should be, and he suggested it be “Deep Blue She” to show the range of the album, and that we could get a few of our friends in various countries to film themselves on their phones dancing around to it, and collage it all together. What inspired the concept for the Deep Blue She #Mutiny2Unity #MeToo WeMix remix and music video/PSA?Ī couple years ago, I was sitting in a London café with Tim Cunningham (who directed the “Heptanesia” video for Bombay Spleen, as well as “ Between The Rock & The Ether”, my collaboration with the late, great and much-missed State of Bengal).

Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier