Recent Exhibition by Karen Hutchins (MA PHotography 2016)

Congratulations to MA Photography graduate Karen Hutchins who had her MA projects 'Quantum Leap' and 'A Dancer Dies Twice' where on display at the Town Gate Theatre in Basildon from the end of November to the end of February. A tour of this exhibition to further theatre venues is planned for the future.

A Dancer Dies Twice

“A dancer, more than any other human being, dies two deaths; the first, the physical when the powerfully trained body will no longer respond as you wish it would. [...] I only wanted to dance. Without dancing, I wished to die.” Martha Graham, Blood Memory, 1991, p238

The life of a dancer is short and emotional; the emotion of leaving the dance is as key as the emotion of living the dance. I wanted to capture the emotion of dying that first death, of receding from life in the spotlight. My intention was to shoot a single frame which illustrated both the blur of balletic movement whilst also reflecting the emotion of leaving a life of dance. I am a photographer of dance and the arts, with particular emphasis on live shows and costume portraiture and enjoy the involvement with dancers at their peak. But I often wonder what happens once that peak recedes, once you are forced, through age or injury, to dance your final piece. What is that emotion as the final curtain falls...as the final dance is over? A dancer dies twice, that first death on stage.