Singer-songwriter Gaya is just about ready to wear her heart on her sleeve.
But this is no ordinary heart. This one is a dizzying 18-foot marvel, built out of three tiers of dressed cardboard and created over the course of three days in a sweltering warehouse in Al Quoz. The gigantic heart, somehow both anatomical and magical in shape, will be the star of her upcoming music video for The Boys Who Cried Love, a chilling tune she released last year on a three-song EP.
Gaya’s video has gone live on July 12 and Gulf News tabloid! has the exclusive. Watch below.
“I wanted something large-scale. I wanted something grand. I feel like the entire song is like a building crescendo. It ends with this choral choke, with wolf cries and all of these things, and I wanted any visuals to depict the chaos of love,” said the singer, born Gayathri Krishnan, who goes by Gaya professionally.
And so the ultimate symbol of love came to life at the hands of Gaya, 31, her chief collaborator, Anoushka “Noush” Anand, 32, their fabricator extraordinaire, Alistair Vowles, 27, and 3D modeller, Ruba Al Araji, 26. The four met through Dubai’s creative scene.
In all, the music video has been four month in the making, from two months of conceptualising and storyboarding at the hands of Krishnan and Anand, known professionally as Gaya and Noush, up to the current final edits. The team filmed in the Auditorium at Dubai College for two days in total; 8am call time, 9pm wrap.
Gaya plans to have an official launch, part-concert, part-museum with artefacts from the shoot, on the same day of the online release, which will land sometime between May 12-16. In the lead up, she’s been uploading a four-part behind-the-scenes series titled #collaboflove on her YouTube channel, gayamusic.
The nearly finished result is an unsettling journey. It takes the viewer through four different settings. First, a newsroom in shambles, exploding with dust but maintaining a strange balance as Gaya’s character stands eerily beautiful among its chaos and sings.
“The first few lines of the song are, ‘Wars were fought and lands were sought, flags and bras were burnt, fortunes fell and tricks were turned.’ It’s this homage to 1950s, 1940s style reportage, where news reporters would report some iconic and historical news. That idea of where we started as humanity and where we are today,” said Gaya.
And then, a wall of hands — floating, disembodied hands, representing different people and strata, thrust through holes in a wall and grappling for purchase around Gaya’s character.
“This character is basically dealing with these different pieces of society and finding her place in it. But it’s also meant to be kind of sensual and exploratory… The character, at first feeling uncomfortable, and then going into a very graceful dance,” said Gaya, who has been studying contemporary dance for the past two years.
The third set is a transparent, 15-foot moon, made out of plywood and 4.5 kgs of cling film that the team purchased in one go from Dragon Mart. (“We have cling film for life, now. Literally.”) Both the moon and the aforementioned wall were built by Gaya’s team from her interior design company, Darling Let’s Go Home.
And finally, the music video wraps up with the massive, suspended heart, with Gaya dancing below.
“I just thought, that would be so beautiful to have that heart — not in a cheesy way, but an organ — to become the centrepiece, depicting the entitlement of love and the fact that it takes space, and it should take space, in the world,” explained Gaya.
The project was financed partially through self-funding and partially with the support of Red Bull, who Gaya has collaborated with for years as a singer-songwriter, although she did not reveal the budget.
More than anything, she hopes the final clip will show the labour of love that went into it. “No matter what, I already feel amazing. Because we’ve come this far, and who knew we would?”
*Check out gayamusic.com for her latest updates.
