And Then We Danced

Spin­ning in dizzy­ing cir­cles of desire, Merab (Lev­an Gel­bakhi­ani) repeat­ed­ly stum­bles as he tries to land on his feet. The phys­i­cal­ly demand­ing steps of Geor­gian dance con­sume his every thought; it is only when the mes­meris­ing Irak­li (Bachi Val­ishvili) steps onto the dance floor that Merab snaps out of his daze. The two are oppo­sites who slot togeth­er effort­less­ly; Merab’s sharp fea­tures com­ple­ment Irakli’s broad­er shoul­ders as they orbit each oth­er in a rigid dance of repressed longing.

Lev­an Akin’s exquis­ite film fol­lows Merab’s deter­mi­na­tion to be in the Nation­al Geor­gian Ensem­ble but with Irak­li as a rival, choos­ing between his head and heart is a form of chore­og­ra­phy Merab has not encoun­tered before. Sim­mer­ing sex­u­al ten­sion brews as the two dancers’ bod­ies grow clos­er. From the grace­ful­ness of soar­ing limbs to the sharp­ness of his turns, Merab’s move­ments are his own lan­guage of yearning.

Akin makes no reser­va­tions in acknowl­edg­ing the homo­pho­bia present in Geor­gia and the nuances of Geor­gian cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty. The incon­gru­ous nature of Merab’s place­ment in Tbil­isi along­side ultra-con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues makes LGBT+ vis­i­bil­i­ty all the more essen­tial. Mur­murs of deplorable con­se­quences faced by a gay dancer, pre­vi­ous­ly in the ensem­ble estab­lish­es the risk Merab faces. With every flour­ish­ing moment of inti­ma­cy between Merab and Irak­li comes the fear of being caught.

Merab overex­erts him­self while attempt­ing to obey his instruc­tor who demands his body must, ​“be like a nail.” Any expres­sion of soft­ness is rep­ri­mand­ed, for Geor­gian dance is ​“based on mas­culin­i­ty.” The young man has learnt to move across these floors with straight mus­cles and a con­ser­v­a­tive veil con­ceal­ing his truth. Still, defi­ance swells with­in him to resist tra­di­tion­al chore­og­ra­phy. Con­for­mi­ty promis­es Merab a future at the cost of rebury­ing a part of him­self he only just unearthed.

Lev­an Gel­bakhi­ani con­ducts his bal­let-trained body with both fragili­ty and fierce­ness; he is noth­ing short of a mar­vel, proven in one lus­trous scene sound­tracked to Robyn’s ​‘Hon­ey’. Croon­ing lyrics accom­pa­ny Merab’s hyp­not­ic move­ments, with a papakha (a wool wig-like hat, tra­di­tion­al­ly used by shep­herds) adorn­ing his curls and his body draped in a blan­ket of gold­en light, he per­forms for Irakli’s eyes only. Blow­ing a cloud of cig­a­rette smoke, his desires are revealed by the slight­est of smiles. Tran­si­tion­ing seam­less­ly from sequences of fast-paced dance to glo­ri­ous track­ing shots last­ing min­utes, Akin mas­ter­ful­ly han­dles every moment with unwa­ver­ing care.

And Then We Danced is rev­o­lu­tion­ary, not only for its will­ing­ness to fea­ture a gay sex scene in an envi­ron­ment where the very notion of LGBT+ exis­tence is con­demned, but also for the essen­tial mes­sage weaved into every frame. Cen­tral is Gelbakhiani’s Merab learn­ing to love him­self against the divi­sive back­drop of Geor­gian cul­ture. Akin expos­es just how beau­ti­ful a recla­ma­tion of tra­di­tion can be.

This film is a pre­cious feat embell­ished with a dar­ing­ly coura­geous and pen­sive reflec­tion of Geor­gian iden­ti­ty. The heart of And Then We Danced beats to the rhythm of its own drum and its echo­ing pulse is felt long after the cred­its roll.