Dance Magazine
Motion and Stillness
Photographing a choreography, like any other photography, requires a premeditated conscious positioning of the photographer in relation to the outcome. The photographer must decide in advance whether to aim for a simple and as accurate as possible recording of the choreography, or to aim at creating a new photographic work inspired by it.
In the first case, the photography process is simplified, as the specific and clear goal already predetermines the process and sets criteria for accepting the outcome. However, this result will always fall short of the original work, which it will represent partially and palely. Moreover, the moving image of cinema or video will certainly be in a better position to approach and reproduce the choreography more faithfully in its entirety and details than one or more photographs capturing static moments of the motion flow.
In the second case, the choreography is treated by the photographer as another piece of reality from the totality of reality surrounding and interesting him, which anyway is the raw material of photography. But this particular reality is already transformed by the original creator, the choreographer, and will be transformed again through the filter of the photographer's visual and mental fixations.
The challenge and fear of every photographer is how to allow his form to coexist with the real event, to transcend it without distorting it. In the case of photographed choreography, this fear is reduced, as the photographer has the ability to move with greater formalistic freedom, which can reach the limits of an exaggeration that would be unacceptable in the case of the primary event. The primary motion has already undergone the choreographic form to be transformed into an (artistic) choreographic event. This in turn undergoes a new transformation with the intervention of the photographic form, to result in a new (artistic) photographic event.
These two artistic events are more related than it seems at first. They are connected by space and time. Photography space-writes, that is, selects and captures a part of the space, just like choreography. This choice gains value in both cases through its relationship with time. However, the creative contradiction, without which there would be no dialogue between choreography and photography, lies in the fact that choreographic time is related to movement, while photographic time is related to stillness.
It is possible that the photographic result has achieved the transcendence and transformation of the choreographic event, but it does not connect with the vision and view of the choreographer and original creator. That is why it is very possible for a good photograph to emerge from an indifferent choreography and of course the opposite. However, if the photographer manages to remain devoted to his own photographic fixations and personal language, influenced but also inspired by the choreographer's proposal, then the photograph can convey more about the substantive content of a choreography than what a faithful photographic or cinematographic portrayal could.
Plato Rivellis