Ballet "L'Errante", Paris 1933

Ilse Bing captured this gelatin silver print of the ballet "L'Errante" in Paris. The grayscale is so lush and moody, it’s like a stage set has been pulled from my own imagination. I picture Bing, waiting, watching, for the perfect moment of torsion. The dancer dips her head as she arches over a shadowy floor, and the ladder, leaning just so, must have been an intentional part of the composition – not just some scaffolding they forgot to move. It’s all about the dance between light and dark here, a soft focus making the scene feel both dreamlike and immediate. Maybe she was thinking about all the unseen effort, the relentless repetition it takes to make movement look so effortless? There is something so incredibly human about the way that the body creates meaning. The way Bing uses light to create this ephemeral atmosphere reminds me of other photographers like Man Ray, and even painters like Degas, all capturing fleeting moments of beauty and form. Artists are constantly echoing and riffing off each other, creating new languages. This dance, this image, it’s all part of the conversation.