BALLET IN FESTIVAL: The Fields of Dance

Dance and photography share several overlapping areas, where both expressions highlight multiple possibilities and unsuspected potentialities. There are, at this point, common places, which go beyond the mastery of a trade. It’s the delight in the alleged perfection of the form, the temptation to leave testimony of something beautiful, which has already been photographed over and over again. We photographers who deal with dance do not usually (or cannot) escape these temptations: the perfect arabesque, the jump "frozen" at the precise moment, the harmonious and suggestive pose. In short, the magic of the stage, of the performance, of the show. Photography thus often leaves mere testimony.

But Fabricio Sansoni, with the exhibition that he presents at Fábrica de Arte as part of the Alicia Alonso International Ballet Festival of Havana, proposes much more than a chronicle about that place and that time (so mysterious and disturbing for a good part of spectators) that takes shape and takes place outside the public eye. Curtain closed, curtain in.

And of course the testimony is in itself valuable, but in addition to that functionality, a concept, a construction, a metaphor is consolidated, as is the case... then photography is definitely art. Sansoni's photographs, taken at the Rome Opera, are not a reflection of reality (art will never be a mirror, not even in the most conservative realism); Sansoni's photographs are a recreation not only of a plastic structure, but also of the impulses, of the intentions, of the spirit that give live to it.

One sees these works and beyond the obvious formal precision (full mastery of a technique, the ability to compose), stories can be glimpsed, feelings, moods, motivations can be recalled. Each photograph can be assumed as a setting. And the choice of monochrome does not seem like a whim, but an emphasis on expressiveness, drama, the documentary vocation that reaffirms the so-called black and white.

The time on stage, performing the art of dance, is minimal when compared to the time invested to guarantee a good show. Sansoni proposes a truly lyrical vision of dancers and technical staff before, during or after the show, immersed in dynamics far removed from the decisive stylization of ballet. Here the stylization is provided by the photographer. His is the mindful search for beauty, which is everywhere, but which the artist discovers earlier and better.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff