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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