In 2005, while working as a conservator in the Kingdom of Bhutan, I found myself caught in the slipstream of the sacred. "Dancing for the Gods" is a visual journal born from that time — an early exploration of movement, grain, and devotion, captured on 35mm black and white film.

Cham dances are the living, breathing heart of Bhutanese Vajrayana Buddhism. Performed by monks during sacred festivals, these dances are a meticulous choreography of the cosmos, where elaborate masks and heavy robes transform mortals into deities, demons, and spiritual entities. It is both a profound meditation for the dancer and a visual transmission of Buddhist teachings for the spectator — a rhythmic reenactment of the eternal struggle between good and evil.

Beneath the weight of the hand-carved masks, the individual ego of the dancer disappears entirely. Every resounding step stamped into the courtyard dust becomes a physical prayer — a wrathful yet compassionate ritual designed to clear away spiritual obstacles and liberate the minds of all who look upon it. There is an ancient, unchanging gravity to these movements, passed down through generations with absolute precision.

As a conservator, my days were spent preserving the static, physical fragments of Bhutan’s past — but in the festival courtyards, I was confronting its living history. The dances do not belong to the past; they are a continuous, dynamic preservation of the sacred, performed in the fleeting space of the present moment.

By stripping away the famously vibrant colors of the festival, the varying speeds of the film rolls allowed me to focus entirely on the raw energy of the ritual. The intentional blur of a swirling sleeve, the sharp grain of a wooden mask, and the distinct cadence of a footstep take center stage. These photographs do not just document a tradition; they attempt to capture the haunting chants, the rhythmic drumbeats, and the unseen spiritual friction of an atmosphere that transcends the physical realm.