Pretender's Dance seeks understanding

It starts not with a dance, but a question -- what would life be like with a missing limb, and what would it take for someone to really, truly want to find out.

Pretender's Dance, a short film created by two former Tufts students, is being featured this Thursday evening at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts before it is shipped off to compete in film festivals worldwide. The film addresses a rare condition called Body Identity Integrity Disorder and is the brainchild of Tufts Alums Tom Keefe, LA/Museum '03, and Jeremy Wang-Iverson, LA '02. The innovative filmmakers created their own production company, Vesto Productions, while they were both still undergraduates on the hill.

"Tom had read an article in Atlantic Monthly in December of 2000 that featured the disorder, and something about it just stuck with him," Wang-Iverson explained. "He thought it would make a great idea for a film, just because it presented the enormous challenge of creating something that would wow an audience that was previously unacquainted with the disorder."

Body Identity Integrity Disorder (BIID) is a psychological condition where affected individuals want to amputate one or more of their own limbs in order to make their physical bodies match their internal, idealized picture of themselves. Those with the disorder may bind their legs or arms to experience life as an amputee, and some even go as far as to cut off their own limbs.

BIID, having barely been researched, is only remotely understood. Because of the embarrassment and the social stigma associated with the disorder, it remains extremely underreported. Men are believed to be affected more often than women, but there is no way to get an absolute count on the numbers afflicted.

"The subject caught my interest," said Keefe. "I thought that you could create a character with the psychological disorder that could drive a storyline in a film, and that was one reason that we chose to do it."

More than anything else, Pretender's Dance seeks to put a human face on a seemingly inhumane disorder. A young ballerina, Adelaide (Samantha Jones), whose livelihood relies on maintaining perfect control over her body, discovers that a close friend, Sebastian (Nick Garrison), is afflicted with BIID. The film's opening is raw and powerful, as a resounding cello echoes dueling images of the graceful, harmonious dancer interspersed with her own physical interpretation of her afflicted friend's illness.

The duo's research for the film spanned more than one thousand miles and lasted over a year. The former Jumbos made five trips to New York to visit an associate who has the disorder. Keefe flew to Florida in order to speak with a man who had shot his leg off with a shotgun. And in June of last year, they attended a conference for those afflicted with BIID that was held in New York City.

"It was the strangest thing, because it was the first time these people allowed themselves to open up," said Wang-Iverson. "In their normal lives, they're all closed in."

The story of Pretender's Dance is simple enough on the surface. After a chance encounter in the woods where she sees Sebastian with his leg bound up to mimic an amputee, Adelaide seeks to understand his condition by incorporating it into an interpretive dance. She wants to learn to empathize, but he, frightened of what she must think, pushes her away.

"Our goal was to create the ability to sympathize -- or at least empathize -- at some order," Wang-Iverson said. "That was our goal, and I think we accomplished it because you hear about this initially and you immediately think that these people are just freaks, but it turns out that that's not the case."

The film itself is moving, with a simple background score playing counterpart to the story of the two protagonists. It relies on vivid settings and tangible imagery to give the audience a sense of what both Adelaide and Sebastian are going through, of her drive to understand and his longing to be understood. In the end, it all comes down to a dance, a cathartic expression of physical emotions.When Adelaide finally takes her finished project to the stage, the emotions it evokes are raw and palpable, courtesy of the young filmmakers who have brought their vision this far. Only then can the audience see. And only then, through this media, can they hope to understand.

Pretender's Dance will be shown in a sneak preview alongside a series of other short films at the Museum of Fine Arts' film program this coming Thursday. As Vesto Productions prepares to ship it off to Sundance, Slamdance, and other film festivals around North America and Europe, the success of the film will hopefully open other doors for the creators, including the opportunity to make a full-length feature film.

"Pretender's Dance" is screening at 6:15 on Thursday, November 20 as part of the Museum of Fine Arts' short film program. Tickets are $8 for students. Call 617-369-3306 for reservations. Take the Green Line of the T to the MFA stop.