contemporary crypt-ic

Getting from the Peruvian thing in Covent Garden to St Mary’s Church for TooMortal yesterday was quite a rush but well worth it. This shot, featuring Avatara Ayuso (front right) with Alejandra Lucrecia Bano Pelegrin (far left) was taken in the photocall for the production of Shobana Jeyasingh’s TooMortal, which opened at the Venice Biennale di Danza 2 weeks ago and premiers in England tomorrow. I recognised many of the dancers in this production from their performance at Somerset House during the last Big Dance.

Although in a church (doh!) the light was considerably easier to work with than it normally is in similar shoots. They normally take place in dark auditoriums or darker clubs with lighting intended to create a mood for the audience and not for us hard working togs. Easier lighting meant I was sufficiently confident of my first set of shots to be able to play with light and perspective in ways that wouldn’t be attractive to my regular clients. That said, this image is from the first batch, where I was going for quality documentary photography rather than playing, and the likely requirements of Dance Today were clearly in mind.

I’ll be at the UK premier and will review it on this blog. Planned performances are at St Mary’s Old Church from June 28th-30th, St Pancras’ Church in Euston from July 12th-14th and St Swithun’s Church in Worcester from 19th-21st July. Visit the 2012 Festival site for more details.