Beauty, grace and athleticism meet the grit, chaos and noise of some of the world’s largest urban cities in these stunningly beautiful, and quirky photographs of the Australian Ballet’s finest dancers.
Shot over the past eight years in Paris, Tokyo and New York by photographer Lisa Tomasetti, also an Australian, there is something almost surreal about photographs of ballerinas in their tutus and satin point shoes “dancing” on hard road surfaces or across bridges and through railway stations. But the photographs are incredibly engaging and you can’t help but smile when you see the locations that these dancers are in; certainly not where you’d expect to see professional ballerinas.
One of my personal favorites in this collection is the Cygnets from Swan Lake on a pedestrian crossing on Sixth Avenue, New York. I ask Lisa how she came to take this shot. There is a volley of laughter as she recounts the story. “That day the God of Tutus was definitely looking after us,” she says. “Sixth Avenue is just a huge avalanche of traffic. We waited for the lights to change and then I said to the dancers, okay, when I yell ‘now’ try and jump at the same time. There was a guy offering to stop traffic for us, and a taxi driver drove past and yelled, ‘hey you made me so happy’. It was hilarious”.
If you look closely at this shot, there are multiple layers that draw you in. The line of traffic just behind the Cygnets evokes a sense of menace; here are these beautiful, vulnerable swans happily gliding across the frame oblivious of the snarl of traffic behind them. We know if at the turn of the lights this wave of metal, glass and rubber will bear down on them. The unfolding drama only assuaged by the smiles on the faces of the Cygnets. They are clearly having a lot of fun and Lisa says the dancers “are totally into it, often asking me, what are we going to do this time?”
I remark that the almost perfect synergy with the four dancers leaping at the same time is amazing. Lisa laughs again. “I look at that shot and I can’t believe it, I was definitely being looked after. We flew by the seat of our tutus that day. I literally had seconds to take that shot. Sixth Avenue is like white noise, there’s so much activity, and it’s so full on”.
The Australian Ballet Company’s management and their Artistic Director approve every shot, but Lisa has considerable artistic freedom, if not the luxury of time with photography “squeezed in between rehearsals and performances”. While she conducts her own reconnoiter of each city to scope out the right locations, often it is a matter of finding a setting close to the theatre, as was the case with the shot taken on Columbus Circle, New York.
“Often I only have the dancers for half an hour and I don’t want to exhaust them. The Columbus Circle shot with Madeleine Eastoe was just outside the Lincoln Centre where she was dancing the lead in Swan Lake. I wanted a vent with steam coming out of it, but of course on that day I couldn’t find one,” Lisa explains. Undeterred, the pair rushed out to Columbus Circle and when there was a momentary break in the traffic, Madeleine did her Marilyn Monroe impression. “It was literally, pose, click and off we go”.
Another favorite of mine is the shot with the New York City policeman and dancer Reiko Hombo in Times Square. “How funny is he?” asks Lisa. “I can be a bit excitable and I forgot he was a real cop, I kept on thinking he was from Central Casting, he was so deadpan. You know Australians can get away with a lot, people think we are pretty kooky (that’s true). I said to him, okay, now Reiko, she’s going to leap in front of you and you are going to look really bored. He did that look perfectly. I asked him if he wanted a copy of the photo, but he didn’t”.
In New York the Brooklyn Bridge also provided a dramatic backdrop. “Amy Harris, she leaps like there is no tomorrow,” enthuses Lisa. “That day the bridge was chockers (very busy), but people stopped and let us take the shot. It is very narrow from a visual perspective, so we had to do the shot again and again. At one point Amy was leaping when a guy on a bike riding past high-fived her.” We both burst into laughter at the thought. I comment that taking a leap in that narrow space is quite a feat. “Just brilliant, actually more than brilliant. And that was her day off. The dancers are so kind and generous to me”. The respect, trust and friendship are obviously mutual and Lisa is clearly part of the family having toured with them so often.
Tokyo provided a very different challenge to New York as Lisa explains. “The Japanese are so polite. At Shinegawa Station, which is madly busy, I was hoping to contrast Lana Jones against the crowds, so that she looked like a white bird flying across a sea of black, but everyone was bowing and moving out of our way. It was the same with Dana Stevenson in downtown Tokyo, no one wanted to engage, it was like we weren’t there”.
Lisa says she has to shoot fast and be careful not to injure the dancers. “They have such fun, but they are amazing machines, they will give you more and more and more, so you just have to say, thanks so much, we’ve got it”.
Alison Stieven-Taylor
Lisa Tomasetti
Behind the Scenes: The Australian Ballet on the International Stage
7-30 March, 2013
James Makin Gallery
67 Cambridge Street
Collingwood, Melbourne
Australia
Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 11am – 5pm
Sunday – Monday: By Appointment Only
