The following series of photographs by Ben Hopper was taken on a construction site in South Tel Aviv. These pictures are the result of an improvised collaboration between a group of Israeli artists and performers. This part of South Tel Aviv borders on the Florentin neighborhood which is considered to be a ‘bohemian’ area, home to a community of young artists. The building under construction in the photographs, between 7-10 stories high, once housed carpentry and glass making workshops, galleries and other spaces, but was evacuated and underwent construction to accommodate new apartments.
The performance event depicted in the series took place on June 14, 2008 and was coordinated by Omer Yechezkel who found the building and came up with the idea of bringing a group of creative people / performers / dancers / circus artists together for an improvised photo shoot. Everyone felt the building was amazing and should be put to use in its ‘empty’ state. The 14th of June was a Saturday which is Shabbat in Israel – that way most of the people (religious or secular) were not at work and the building was accessible (unofficially). All images © copyright of Ben Hopper.
1. From right to left: Ido Cheddar, Sharon Danon, Guy Leon, Maria Fernández, Adam Bezalel
This series of images by Edinburgh based artist and freelance photographer, Ines Gennuso, is from a project called “Theatre Sets”. Over the course of a year, Gennuso photographed a range of theatre sets across the UK – prior to performances – to explore the way artificial light with its reverberating colours imbues space with a surreal and atmospheric quality. Gennuso was drawn to the theatre as the subject for this project for the way it utilizes artificial light to transform the ordinary into something bold and dramatic, analogous to the way it shifts human emotions from everyday life to the theatre stage.
Gennuso methodically photographed all the theatre sets in the same way, maintaining the same perspective and a tight composition in all the images so as to use a typological approach to explore the spatial realm of theatre. Her art practice focuses on the blurring of theatre and its visual language into photography and it explores the aesthetic conventions and cultural references which define the idea of theatricality. All images © copyright of Ines Gennuso.
1. Looking for Nessie. Talking Heads Puppets. Design by Steve Ross.
The following series of photographs by Nicolas Havette were taken during the rehearsal of an intercultural dance collaboration between Chumvan Sodhachivy, a Cambodian dance who specializes in the Apsara dance style, and the French dancer/choreographer Sébastien Ramirez. The performers were brought together in the context of the Phnom Penh Hip Hop Festival and had a week to prepare the piece. The concept of superimposed images came initially as a response to a technical lighting constraint before permeating the entire series. To Havette, this was a reminder that technical constraints can often be the source of artistic creation. “This may be somewhat of a modernist approach to photography” remarks Havette, “but I think (photographic) technique should be considered a creative source that has equal bearing on the meaning of the work.” All images © copyright of Nicolas Havette.
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Malaysian photographer and performance artist, Jemima Yong, presents a series of photos from Wrecked – a production recently performed at Wilton’s Music Hall. Set against the political instability of Nineteenth Century Paris, Wrecked tells the true story of Théodore Géricault. Géricault, an artist whose surviving documents and images help paint the portrait of his dramatic life, is taken from the brink of madness by a doomed love affair to the creation of his greatest painting, The Raft of Medusa. Wrecked was written and directed by John East and Pete Reed of the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. All images © copyright of Jemima Yong.
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In this series, Theatre in Pictures covers one of the oldest facets of theatre/performance: masks. For the past 17 years, professional Canadian mask maker, Douglas R. Witt has been making and teaching masks for theatre, film and television. Through the creation and performance process of mask, Witt is able to explore new cultures, artistic practices and storytelling techniques, and forge lasting bonds with the people he meets on his travels. The following seris of photographs chronicles the creation process for three ‘Hawk masks’ commissioned by the Calgary Stampede festival. All images © copyright of Douglas R. Witt.
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Adam Levy is a London-based theatre photographer who, for this series of images, turns his attention to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2009 and a one-woman rendition of August Strindberg’s play The Stronger. The production is directed by Caroline Devlin and performed by Laura Pradelska. This short one-act play unfolds in a “ladies’ cafe” between two female characters Miss X and Miss Y, only one of whom speaks. The Stronger runs until the 31st of August at Jury’s Inn in Edinburgh. All images © copyright of Adam Levy.
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The first series of photos to launch the new Theatre in Pictures project is by Alan Eglinton, a Paris-based freelance photographer. The subject is the Japanese Butoh company, Sankai Juku, and their celebrated work Unetsu – The Egg stands out of Curiosity, first performed in 1986. The two kanji that form the word ‘Unetsu’ (卵熱) translate as egg/ovum and heat/fever. The company was founded in 1975 by Amagatsu Ushio and the name ‘Sankai Juku’ translates as ’studio/school between mountain and sea’. Sankai Juku’s work is an important component of the ‘Second Wave’ of Butoh since it began in the 1960s. The photos included here are of a 2006 production at the Vaison-la-Romaine Dance Festival, France. All images are © copyright of Alan Eglinton.
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