Israel Ballet 2007 / 2010

Passion of dance

Canadian Beverley Abramson’s enthusiasm and passion for dance took her on a seven-year photography project. For her limited-edition book project Bawdy Language: Exotic Dance, published in 2003, she began documenting impressive international dance rites. Particularly her intimate shots in the backstage dressing rooms characterized the entire spectrum of female dancers: the concentrated gestures of revue girls and ballerinas while in front of their make-up mirrors before a parade or rehearsal.

Capturing the distinct unity of music, movement, and emotion was one of the essentials motivating Abramson’s photo series. This unity and the dedication to the music are especially revealed in her characteristic flamenco photographs, which show the dancers in unbelievably bold gestures and steps. Their skirts twirl so energetically around their legs that the movements and emotions are transformed into a spiral of sparkling energy.

But especially with her portraits of revue girls and ballerinas she portrays the tension before a performance as a moment of pleasant anticipation; she captures even the brief serenity of a short break with sensitivity.

With her black-and-white photography Beverley Abramson achieves portraits full of expressive facial expressions and enthralling lighting in front of the neon glow of the dressing table. Backstage the photographer becomes one of the dancers, following their rapid costume changes with her camera, sometimes capturing on film a pose just for the camera before the dancer enters the stage. The skimpily dressed bodies flirt challengingly with the game of flaunting and eroticism. But it is exactly in the up-close and intimate moments when more lipstick is applied, cheeks and forehead powdered, a hairdo repinned, or undergarments fastened that the dancers reveal their proximity to and trust in Beverley Abramson. The photographer seems herself to have become part of the perfectly tuned wheelwork of the show.