In love with all shapes

Shape of You by Ed Sheeran is gaining a lot of attention. It is one of three songs that has touched the one million mark on Spotify. Recently a 20-year-old rapper and song writer, Chika Oranika from Alabama, also transformed the song into a pride rap that has gone viral. The song continues to inspire many to make meaningful content. Closer home, Shape of You has also become a song promoting body positivity. An enthusiastic group of youngsters adapted the song for a video titled Shape of Us. The video talks about inclusion and has differently-abled people and people with different body shapes grooving to the tunes.

Theatre artist Hina Siddiqui, who conceptualised the video, says, “Anyone can dance. The fact that popular culture propagates the idea that certain body types are attractive, needed to be challenged.”

Hina adds, “When I heard the Shape of You for the first time I loved it, but when I saw the video, it was all about perfect people. So the idea was to create a more inclusive narrative that has people from all backgrounds. Dance has always been a way of occupying space for me. Well-known feminist Eve Ensler also talks about this. So, we assembled all kind of bodies in the video that we could bring together at that point of time.”

Hina collaborated with her friends and aquaintances to make this video. Choregrapher Irisha Poonawalla, who is also doing her PhD in Dance and Communication, says, “What drew me in was the idea. It is an universal concept... music and dance transcend everything else. It is also a fun and light-hearted way to send across a message.”

Talking about the dance moves, she shares, “The differently-abled people in the video couldn’t do all the moves, so I suggested they just use their hands or whatever they feel comfortable doing and it turned out fantastic. I think the concept of reintepreting the song was one of the best ideas ever.”

Cinematographer Karan Ahuja felt that it was pretty challenging to communicate effectively with so many people. He shares, “When Hina presented the concept to me I quite liked it. Given the fact that I had some experience with handling the camera, I joined in the capacity of cinematographer.”

He adds, “I was nicknamed ‘soft’ as a kid. Other kids at school would pinch my tummy and pull my cheeks as they walked by. It got so bad when some teachers began calling me soft in class. It’s appalling how easily we forget that we are all human with the same set of requirements, we all need love, care and acceptance. Shape of Us gave me a chance to redeem myself. The fact that such a brilliant team of people could come together and work past each obstacle is amazing.”