Julia Gragnon‘s Galerie de l’Instant is presenting an exhibition entitled “L’Envol” about Dance. She describes it as follows:
At the Gallery, I’ve never been able to distinguish between the personal and the professional… Whether it’s a good thing or not doesn’t change anything, it’s just the way it is, I don’t know how to do it any other way… that’s why the success of last year’s exhibition “Corps et âme “ on Dance touched me so much. I combined my passion for photography, represented by the work of my father, François Gragnon, and my love of Dance, which I inherited from my mother, Tessa Beaumont, a former prima ballerina. This sharing and the many encounters that followed were a great joy for me and the Gallery team; I hadn’t realized how much this subject could touch the public and the power of its impact… it was truly a wonderful summer. That’s why I wanted to repeat this experience and set out in search of new photographic treasures!
Thus, I discovered the magnificent work of Matthew Brookes, an American portraitist whose sensitivity and his ways of looking at dancers’ bodies immediately spoke to and moved me. His kindness and discretion highlight the beauty and intensity of his models.
One of his images depicts the star dancer Hugo Marchand in mid-flight. His body expresses freedom, power, and grace, achieved after years of work and sacrifice, for this fleeting but perfect moment. This is why this new exhibition is called “L’Envol” (The Flight).
A few years ago, when I left the screening of Billy Elliot with my mother, I found her overwhelmed by the end of the film… she told me that this ending had allowed her to verbalize her passion for her art, and that indeed it was this leap, this flight, this freedom, that she had always pursued without ever having clearly formulated it. It was a very beautiful and very powerful moment. And it is all the more moving because Matthieu Brookes also photographed the dancer in Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, at the origin of this cinematic moment. As is often the case, everything makes sense.
We also have many other photographers present: Gilles Tapie, who took the most beautiful images of his wife Sylvie Guillem, for me the greatest dancer ever seen. Robert Doisneau, whose prints we found from the 1950s. Sam Shaw, a friend of Marilyn Monroe, and witness to the star dancing in her garden at home. The purity of that moment, the carefree attitude, and Marilyn’s grace never cease to move me… or the superb images of Maria Helena Buckley, a photographer at the Paris Opera, a privileged witness of the Stars but also a friend of the great Polina Semionova, a star in Berlin. And finally, Ann Ray, whose complicity with the dancers makes the images more intimate, more powerful!
All these moments form a completely subjective whole, which I hope will move and inspire visitors to this new exhibition, and capture, if only a little, the joy these dancers bring us.
Julia Gragnon
“L’Envol”
From June 19 to September 14, 2025
Opening on June 19 from 7 p.m.
La Galerie de L’instant
46 Rue de Poitou
75003 Paris, France
www.lagaleriedelinstant.com
