balance

featured image: dschinny

It was once said I was told then read it somewhere, that Helmut’s wife was horrified when, her husband stopped photographing models and started shooting flowers instead – Helmut’s enjoyed great renown till today and today Helmut’s not who I am. Domestic suss aside, this dancer got me where it’s good – by the imagination.. She likes plants and dragons. There was a time when I spoke more loudly of flower fetish, and it was there in awe of fluttering perfection where my interest in rendering natural patterns and small detail took hold – not in city light street and maybelline, but in petals and pollen grain, – in unruly bushes wood after pouring rain, and rolling fields of green.

There is defiance about the seeming stillness of the plant world that fascinates, and speaks in long slow verses most profound – of having been long before all of us around and long after will abound. There is a defiance about dance that seems in playful words to say – “you could if you would and try maybe you should, it’s only your problem if you don’t know what’s good”.

dance portrait still unstill

I think it’s always better to get to know a person or character before one can reasonably expect them, as subject, to really show something of their souls, or at least that of ‘what’ they seek to articulate. What less than collective meaning making will do? The only problem is perhaps, that if engaging enough the conversation gains in richness and one is never satisfied.  I ask myself if it’s this way only with dancers; as the same problem presents itself while shooting the act of dance itself – in choosing what moments over others to commit. Reflection brings me to further to the notion of balance, and to what amount dance exemplifies life as it flows, grows, performs and unfolds. Does balance in the simple sense really exist – this ephemeral elusive perfect state, and who can rely on or even attempt to claim entitlement to it imperfect and evolving?

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