A Dancer Dies Twice
“A dancer, more than
any other human being, dies two deaths; the first, the physical when the
powerfully trained body will no longer respond as you wish it would. [...] I
only wanted to dance. Without dancing, I wished to die.” Martha Graham, Blood Memory,
1991, p238
The life of a
dancer is short and emotional; the emotion of leaving the dance is as key as
the emotion of living the dance. I wanted to capture the emotion of dying that
first death, of receding from life in the spotlight. My intention was to shoot
a single frame which illustrated both the blur of balletic movement whilst also
reflecting the emotion of leaving a life of
dance. I am a photographer of dance and the arts, with particular emphasis on
live shows and costume portraiture and enjoy the involvement with dancers at
their peak. But I often wonder what happens once that peak recedes, once you
are forced, through age or injury, to dance your final piece. What is that
emotion as the final curtain falls...as the final dance is over? A dancer dies
twice, that first death on stage.
