HOW DOES GJON MILI REFLECT DANCE MOVEMENT AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EMOTIONS BEING PORTRAYED THROUGH HIS PHOTOGRAPHY?
‘Questions of self and identity have long concerned artists and are intensified as digital lives become ubiquitous and an aspect of performance becomes the norm in terms of modes of behaviour’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 150).
In our lives we portray and represent ourselves among many others and highlight our passions and significant features that make us who we are, enabling to show our individualism. The world we live in is somewhat being taken over by the performing arts genre and takes up a huge amount of social and contextual importance; portrayed to our society that individuals who shine over others are one in a million, that making it to the top is a one in a billion chance, so why do people even bother trying? The dance industry is something I have always had a drive to be a part of and I believe is an area that helps me identify myself and show to others my deeper emotions and feelings that may not always be depicted through speech; along with hundreds and thousands of other people around the world that use dance to do so. To use dance and movement to tell a story, to show a feeling, to show a concept, an idea. However, the idea that dance is just a ‘performance’ or a show rather than an expression, a place to hide away rather than to flourish, a secret rather than a narrative is a consistent debate that continues to divide critics and our society. This demonstrates that within a dancer there is a front, a side that they want to show the world, the side where they put themselves forward, contrasting with their hidden deeper meanings and insecurities that they hide away from the audience when they perform. Therefore ‘The question arises: if manipulation is the first thing someone thinks of in connection to photography, what does that say about the value of photography as a reflection of reality?’ (Bright and Van Evp, 2019; 17). This quotation is something I will keep in mind during my investigation; a reminder than I want the reality, the truth not a manipulation or a cover up to hide but the certainty of reality. For my personal study I will be investigating the idea of representing emotions that an individual feels through dance, however I want to diverge away from the norm and look at more uncomfortable subjects rather than the stereotypical face of dance. In my photography I want to show both sides of individuals in the dance community, I want to show the hard work that goes into it, to show the love, the relief and the drive. I want my images to represent a narrative to its viewers, for them to see my images and ask more questions but most importantly I want to use my photography to highlight each emotion that someone feels when they dance and why they feel certain way; to exit the norm of dance photography and enter a new realm of ideas that reflect more than just a pointed toe, I want to show the vehemence of a dancers response to how they truly see themselves and the industry.
When taking a closer look at my photography work it is clear to see it has connections with realism, and a documentary point of view. There is a narrative. However, it is vital to consider that realism was a rejection from the pictorialism which was a movement from the 1860s through to early 20th Century. Pictorialism is the development of photography into the reinvention of an art form placing beauty, tonality, and composition above creating an accurate visual record. This was where photography finally began to be fully accepted and began to be seen on the same line of painting and start to have it recognised as such by galleries and other artistic institutions. In the early beginnings of photography, it was mainly for scientific and representational purposes. This soon shifted in the 1850s when advocates such as the English painter William John Newton who suggested that photography could also have artistic trait.
In this case, I am looking at the genre of dance. We know that photography can create a more realistic point of view of real experiences. But, as can be seen with Cindy Sherman who exploits various tools of the everyday cinema such as costumes, makeup, stage scenery to uphold an illusion of ‘realism’ when capturing what is known as ‘iconic snapshots’ that can reflect significant pre-conceptions. Tableau and staged reality create an illusion that is fed by stereotypes, and this is something that I want to keep away from with my own work.
Cindy Sherman quoted ‘The still tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told’ (Sherman. C, 1982, Cindy Sherman) this quote itself demonstrates the sheer point of my work and why I have decided focus on this particular area.
A prime example of how this helps relate and boost the background work of my own photography can be out laid to one of her most famous self-portrait images from her series called ‘Disasters and Fairy Tales’ (1985) photo shows Sherman as a damsel in distress. Crouched on the ground, she fearfully looks away from the camera. With wetted hair and a tensed position, she appears as if she just walked off the set of a horror film. The clever and thought out use of the specific lighting helps shows how Sherman favourably evokes an old tradition, quasi-racist ‘’cheap tricks’’ represented in the movie industry. By using this particular freeze frame, it is demonstrating how Sherman portrays as a visual ‘truth serum’, a force of social change by way of its ability to stop a viewer in his/her tracks and suggests how certain assumptions are culturally inherited and therefore not necessarily ‘natural’ and cause a fake front hiding the true and deeper meaning of the ‘fairy tales’. This overall, highlights the significance of representing the correct forum of the genre of dance in favour of the realistic view contrasting with the covered-up front provided by the media. Sherman’ postmodernist approach questions gender roles and stereotypes, common in mainstream media, cinema and the performance industry. The femme fatale has come full circle now in the age of the #metoo movement.
After looking more closely and in depth into the background of my initial idea for my investigation it essential to continue looking back at my questions and statement of intent that helps guide the study and overall investigation of my projected.
Born on November 28th, 1904 and passing away February 14th, 1984, Gjon Mili is a extensively influential photographer that was a flourishing influencer to the type of photography he produced, known for using stroboscopic instruments to help capture a sequence of actions in one photograph. Furthermore, his life dedicated to photography allowed him to be one of the first to tamper with electronic flash and stroboscopic light to create images that had a more scientific background to the creation. Many of his notable images revealed the beautiful intricacy and graceful flow of movement too rapid or complex for the naked eye to discern. Gjon Mili’s highlight of his career that aided his popularity and well-deserved credit was his work published by Life, in which he photographed artists such as world-renowned painter Pablo Picasso. Mili was a photographer I wanted to use to investigate for my study and potentially be my inspiration for my images that I produced, due his simplistic approach creating such astonishing outcomes, as well as this factor he has done a lot of photography were his has capture dancers specific movements; instead of just the specific movement he presented the steps towards and after that certain movement. Mili once said ‘Time could be truly be made to stand still. Texture could be retained despite sudden violent movement.’ To me this clearly demonstrate his approach to photography the concept of time and movement being projected in his images.
Here is one of my favourite images that he has produced using stroboscopic technique to allows each movement made to be capture and represented; this image is a multiple exposure of Alicia Alonsa (vintage sliver gelatin print). From this image is it clear there is a deep technical consideration to be made and highlighted; firstly, there is a strong artificial lighting being produced from the left of the image and illuminating the dancing’s main features in each particular movement to be captured. In addition, the positioning of the camera is pretty much straight on which gives the illusion of being on par with the flooring which helps the ballet shows on the dancer have a significant standout feature which additionally aids the point of the images; the image has high intensity with a strong detailed focus on each aspect of the dancer in each position.
Overall form the texture of the images it suggests a low light sensitivity due to the lack of graininess being shown in the photograph, as well as the colouring of the image which are warmer forms of black and white shades producing a more emotional point of view of the image being transformed though each aspect of each position of the dance move being captured. On the other hand, you have visual aspect of the photograph to consider as previously mentioned thighs the use of the black and white shades used in the image it aids the feeling of a darker representation of the photograph to be exhibited; alongside the view of a 3D image due to the shadows of the dancers which help highlight this point. Evidently though the technique Mili used to create this image there is a visual aspect of repetition of the image, seen through the repetition of the dance with a slightly different position as she moves through the whole movement. In terms of lines you have the strong lines being formed through the dancer herself through the specific positioning of her body and her gradual arm movement which creates a different point of view and overall positioning in each step and section made. Contextually the image is pretty clearly showing the motion of a dancer, the dancer in the image is Alicia Alonsa who was Cuban prima ballerina assoluta and chorographer whose company became Ballet Nacional de Cuba in 1955; this additional information aids the point of the image and the actual emotion, the genuine passion that the dancer has for the movement, which is believe to be very well represented in the image by Mili through the specific positioning and layout of the ballerina dancer.
Overall this analysis and general research in to Gjon Mili helps to answer my questions on how photography is used to reflect dance movement and the significance of emotions being portrayed through his photography; to Gjon does this through the technique of using stroboscopic instruments to allow each position of the overall movement of the dancer to be seen through the image therefore reflecting the dance movement; as well as using conceptual and contextual factors to help support the emotions that are being projected and represented by the image; Finally being supported by the clever throughout camera techniques which help the end concept.
Finally, after going into depth about Gjon Mili and getting a true understanding to how his work reflects dance movement and emotions, I began to investigate myself through planning and piecing together aspects of the investigation that I wanted to incorporate that would allow for the best possible outcome; whilst still considering work produced by Gjon and other relevant artists. For my own image I began by creating a plan and making a final decision in whether on whether I would photograph myself in the form of self-portraits or take images of other people to project the feeling and emotions of myself through the use of others through myself. In the end I decided to use other dancers for my investigation. I used three other dancers and planned four to five shoots that would help tell a story and the final result that I wanted to have by the end of project; a shoot where I photographed their baby photos, one where it was in the photography studio, dance school studio, detail shot shoot and then photographing my dance school environment. When adding all these photoshoots together to helped aid my story and emotion that I wanted to project through my images relating to dancing. After finishing up on my shoots it was essential to look back at Gjon Mili’s work and reflect on how I can relate it to my own, of course unfortunately I do not have access to stroboscopic instruments in order to create the movement of the image and capture the whole layout of the dance step. Furthermore I had to come up with a way that would enable me to give off a similar effect, for this, when in the studio I used the sports mode of the camera and got each dance to perform a pattern of movement for example, a high kick or a pirouette; this meant I got a photo of each different position that happens when carrying out these motions. Next I opened the images of each dancer’s movement which consisted of about 7 images per movement in Adobe Photoshop. Firstly, I edited each image to a certain standard in this case black and white with emphasis on the costumes so it would stand out when photographed were over laid. After the images were over laid, I adjusted the opacity which would enable all the images to slightly fade so they would become transparent; therefore, be able to see the process of the movement of doing a high kick, from start to end. This is somewhat a representation of Mili’s work as it creates the same forum when answer my question as the image represents the dance movement as long side emotional aspects presented through the colour and editing of the image; which helps tell a story when placed with other photographs that may aid this point. Overall, I am extremely happy with my final outcome and response to Gjon Mili’s work due to the technical and visual aspects that have been produced. On the other hand, it is key to consider that there are defiantly different conceptual and contextual differences between my own work and Gjon; in terms of the dance movement and emotions being projected.
In conclusion, there is over whelming evidence to suggest my investigation had guided me to answering my initial question ‘how does Gjon Mili reflect dance movement and the significance of emotions being portrayed through his photography?’. I believed this to be presented through the specific camera setting and illusions created in order to give the effects of literally showing each movement through each position being captured, this is a more visual front and approach to the question. On the other hand, when looking at the emotional reflection of dance movement being portrayed in the images; for this projection I think that the temperature of the image aids this point as well as the actual face expression being reflected through. Overall, highlighting the final argument that clearly shows how Gjon Mili Mili reflect dance movement and the significance of emotions being portrayed through his photography.