Bamboo has long been a ritual and a part of legends in Mizoram, but for performer and filmmaker Shilpika Bordoloi, it also became a creative pursuit. In the rhythmic clapping of bamboo poles and the stories they hold, she found the seed for her documentary Mau: The Spirit Dreams of Cheraw. The short film, set in Mizoram, is a lyrical tribute to the traditional Cheraw dance, or Bamboo Dance, where men strike poles in unison while women weave, step, and leap through the shifting grid with practiced grace. In Mizo, mau means bamboo.
The film is part of Bordoloi’s larger body of work, Bamboo Bodies, and won her 71st National Award for Best Debut Director (Non-Feature). “The relationship with bamboo exists across all states in North East India. I intend to bring out some stories that are forgotten and hold meaning for the community through films,” Bordoloi says.
Traditionally, Cheraw was performed to pacify the spirit of a woman who died at childbirth, considered tragic in Mizo culture. “Women would perform Cheraw as an offering of pacification to the mother spirit for her peaceful transition in the journeys of her afterlife,” she explains.
What inspired the film is the species Mautak, used in the Cheraw performance. “This species, Mautak, flowers only once every 40 years, and it dies as soon as it blooms. I found this very poetic and metaphorically parallel to the story of the death of a mother during childbirth,” she says. Mautak also played a key role in the creation of Mizoram as a state.
Bordoloi’s research focuses on displacement across regions. “During the pandemic, I was thinking a lot about displacement—both in the Northeast, where it has long been a concern due to conflict, and across India, with the migrant workers’ crisis and our own disrupted lives,” says the Assamese filmmaker.
These reflections led to the exploration of a larger episodic project on human–non-human relationships called Displaced Others. “My starting point was researching the relationship between humans and trees.”
Towards the end of 2022, Bordoloi curated a theatre festival on Majuli Island, on the Brahmaputra River in Assam. “The venue for the festival was a riverside and a bamboo grove. I spent about ten days in that grove, experiencing performances and connecting with the community. It was refreshing and beautiful.”
It was at this point that Bordoloi began to view bamboo in a different light. “I had always known bamboo’s importance in climate resilience, but I hadn’t studied the science,” she says. She began by researching bamboo in Assam, speaking with environmentalists and scientists. “But on closer research, I found the context of Mizoram even richer.”
Bordoloi calls herself an intuitive filmmaker. So when she felt Mizoram was calling her, she followed it despite few connections in the state and no background in filmmaking. “I was supported by the community and collaborators,” she says.
For a decade, Bordoloi has traversed different genres. Her work delves into the intersection of environment, people, and culture. “My film became a space where the dancer, anthropologist, director, and performer could all meet,” she says.
Bordoloi feels a responsibility to tell stories about climate, memory, and the transformations our world is undergoing. “My activism is through storytelling and it takes time to grow and become,” she says.