Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | D | Dance Magazine

How slow can you go? Visual artist David Michalek turns his slow-motion camera on leading dancers.

Article Excerpt
This month, 44 gigantic dancers will take over the Lincoln Center Plaza. Climbing up the side of the New York State Theater, these figures of Godzilla-like proportions are not something to fear, but rather to marvel at. Dance legends like Bill T. Jones, Allegra Kent, Wendy Whelan, Judith Jamison, and William Forsythe will leap into the air at extraordinarily slothful speeds, and defy gravity by remaining suspended for minutes on end. Dancers from all corners of the world will be represented too, performing the traditions of Turkey, India, China, and West Africa. Even a voguer and a drag queen will make an appearance.

Muscles will jiggle in ways the naked eye cannot detect. Costumes will turn into golden, silken liquid. And if you let your eyes linger, you will be able to see the initial impulse of every movement. Slow is the ultimate understatement.

The mastermind behind this larger(and slower)-than-life installation, simply called Slow Dancing, is visual artist David Michalek. A changing triptych of Michalek's video portraits will be projected in high definition every night of the Lincoln Center Festival, July 10-29. All passersby, whether leaving a festival event or just walking through the plaza, are encouraged to stop and watch for free.

"A photograph doesn't contain the thing that is essential to a dancer, which is the time element," says Michalek, who...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!