As part of my art practice I am interested in developing alternative narratives for dance imagery.

I attended a performance of Eric Whitacre’s choral work ‘Sacred Veil’. I was moved by the theme of passing through the veil at the points of life and death and wanted to respond to the music.

From a rehearsal I had photographed, I identified six sequential monochrome negatives of a dancer standing and gesturing solemnly and expressively with her arms.  Three negatives were severely underexposed and contained only vague details of the dancer. The negatives were scanned and serendipitously, colour reflecting off the emulsion was revealed. I amplified the colour and simplified the images to create an ethereal tone.

The temporal sequence showed the figure initially vaguely, then distinctly and finally returning to the original state. I saw this as an interpretation of passing through the sacred veil, pausing at a staging point, before moving further on again. Kinetic empathy and embodied cognition vary with image clarity. Clear images allow the precariousness of the dancer’s poses to be felt.