Wellness

THE BEAUTIFUL MOTION OF DANCE NOW

Photo of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Company by Jana Cruder.

Dancers’ bodies are more beautiful than others, not just because they are in perfect condition, with sculpted muscles and graceful form, but because the very motion of dance benefits their mental, physical, and emotional health. This is true even for people who don’t consider themselves as dancers.

Today, we are sharing spectacular images from four exceptionally talented photographers that capture the beautiful motion of dance in unique ways.

JANA CRUDER

Jana Cruder’s photographs of the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Company freeze the ephemeral beauty of motion in time.

Her photographs are portraits of the dancers surrounded by bursts of bright color. Inspired by colorful stage lights, Cruder intensified the beauty of the dancers’ motions with “hippie powder,” a mixture of cornstarch and food dye.

The dancers threw the powder as they jetéed, glissaded, and pirouetted across the stage. Other dancers in the wings threw clouds of colored powder onstage. The elegant beauty of ballet and dynamic explosions of color in Cruder’s photos are magnificent studies on the poetry of beautiful motion.

JEFFREY VANHOUTTE

The expressive portraits of an acrobatic dancer among clouds of powder, photographed by Brussels-based photographer Jeffrey Vanhoutte, is another series that dreamily highlights beautiful motion.

This series was shot as a marketing campaign for Netherlands-based powdered milk producer Friesland Campina Kievit, by creative agency Norvell Jefferson.

The magnificent details in these photos, from the individual particles of powder to the specific movements of the dancer, create painterly images, with a perfect balance of light and dark, motion and stillness. They evoke angels and birds in flight.

As the dancer tosses the powder, it falls in precise bursts around her graceful movements. The photos freeze each moment, preserving the beauty of its motion forever.

SETH HANCOCK

Seth Hancock’s images of Los Angeles-based ballerina, Stephanie Kim, uses stage lighting to create a map of motion.

Hancock wanted to capture Kim in a fresh and interesting way. He used red, blue, and neutral settings on the fresnels, with varying intensities, to create an image of constant motion, then froze the image with strobe lights to create separation.

We love the wispy, almost glowing images that trace the arc of dance and capture the beautiful flow of its motion.

BEN FRANKE

Brooklyn-based photographer Ben Franke’s series of Parkour athletes coated in flour is a collection of images that trace the cycle of motion that leads to a final captured pose.

Parkour is a training discipline using movement that developed from military obstacle course training. The aim is to get from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible, using only the human body and the surroundings for propulsion. It’s all about momentum.

Franke partnered with the city’s first Parkour facility, BRKLYN BEAST.

Frozen between takeoff and landing, these athletes are photographed against the blackened New York cityscape. They appear to be flying across the night sky, as the passage of time is documented with a layer of white powder.

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