Finis – Page 5

A Special Kind Of Dance…

October 31, 2012 by 4dancers

by Christopher Duggan

Some of you may not know that I have another job–or at least another version of my photographer life. I split my time between photographing dance and weddings. Just this past week I had two engagement shoots with happy couples before preparing for a visit to Chicago to make pictures with The Joffrey Ballet.

To some, my two passions sound like a strange combination of pursuits, but I’ve found a lot of connections between my work in dance and at weddings. Each dance performance (especially world premieres) and every wedding I photograph is a once in a lifetime event. It takes intense focus and a keen awareness to find just the right moments to create the perfect image.

And I’m lucky that my two passions combine in another very meaningful way – I get to photograph dancing at my weddings, too! There’s all this energy at a wedding, and when people finally get on the dance floor, it’s this huge outpouring of joy and excitement. It’s so much fun to watch close families and friends let loose.

Not only that, but the special dances – first dances, father-daughter dances – mean even more to me now that I have a daughter of my own.

Contributor Christopher Duggan is the founder and principal photographer of Christopher Duggan Photography, a New York City-based wedding and dance photography studio. Duggan has been the Festival Photographer for Jacob’s Pillow Dance since 2006. In this capacity, and as a respected New York-based dance photographer, he has worked with renowned choreographers and performers of international acclaim as well as upstarts in the city’s diverse performance scene.

He has created studio shots of Gallim Dance, Skybetter + Associates and Zvidance, among others, and in 2011 alone, he has photographed WestFest at Cunningham Studios, Dance From the Heart for Dancers Responding to Aids, The Gotham Dance Festival at The Joyce Theater, and assisted Nel Shelby Productions in filming Vail International Dance Festival.

Duggan often teams up with his talented wife and Pillow videographer Nel Shelby (http://nelshelby.com). A New York City-based husband and wife dance documentation team, they are equipped to document performances, create and edit marketing videos and choreography reels, and much more.

Christopher Duggan Photography also covers Manhattan’s finest wedding venues, the Metropolitan and Tri-State areas, and frequently travels to destination weddings. The company’s mission is straightforward and heartfelt – create timeless, memorable images of brides, grooms, their families and friends, and capture special moments of shared love, laughter and joy.

His photographs appear in The New York Times, Destination I Do, Photo District News, Boston Globe, Financial Times, Dance Magazine, Munaluchi Bridal, and Bride & Bloom, among other esteemed publications and popular wedding blogs. One of his images of Bruce Springsteen was added to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s celebrated photography collection in 2010. His company has been selected for inclusion in “The Listings” in New York Weddings magazine.

The Echos Of Iconic Dance Imagery

September 30, 2012 by 4dancers

by Christopher Duggan

It’s Jacob’s Pillow‘s 80th anniversary, and if you’ve had the chance to visit the Pillow, you’ll know that every year Norton Owen creates a beautiful exhibit in Blake’s Barn. This summer’s exhibit is the Decades of Dance and features photographs spanning the festival’s 80 years. I’ve always been inspired by these historic photographs on the Pillow grounds, and this summer I decided to create a personal project surrounding some of my favorite iconic images.

When The Horse’s Mouth program was presented this summer, taking advantage of the connection to Ted Shawn’s Men Dancers was a no-brainer. We were trying to do something interesting with the group to showcase that Ted Shawn was a pioneer for male performers. We recreated the famous photo of the Men Dancers in their bathrobes.

I wanted to recreate in the spirit of the original image and then we made another photo, because I wanted to give it my own spin with the creativity of the dancers.

That photo shoot got my juices going. I had always loved an iconic image of Ruth St. Denis from 1950 in this beautiful dress. When I saw Jessica Lang’s dance with the white dress by Elena Comendador, I thought “Oh my God, I wonder if she’ll be willing…”

The third and final “Then & Now” from this summer is tribute to a gorgeous picture by John Lindquist of a dancer on the Ted Shawn Theater with the doors open (a lot of people think it was taken on Inside/Out, but this was before the outdoor stage existed).

When I found out that The Joffrey Ballet was going to be in the Ted Shawn Theater and the company planned to open the back barn doors for one of their dances, I was overjoyed. I’ve been waiting for six weeks to make that picture. I was just getting in my mind how I’d execute the photo and things started to unravel. The Joffrey didn’t open the doors because it was too cold, and there were several floor lights on the edge of the stage that would alter the shot. There were so many factors that would make it difficult to recreate the photo that I gave up on the idea. But while the dance photography workshop was going on, I was walking by the theater, and they had just finished company class. I went on stage and showed the photo to one of the dancers on my iPhone, and we went for it.

If you visit Jacob’s Pillow, you’ll notice that every room in every building on campus has photographs on the wall. It’s so obvious that photographs are our window into the past, the living legacy of the festival. I honor that, I’m intimidated by that, and I’m proud of that. This was a way to connect to the past and to leave my own mark.

Photographing The Joffrey Ballet

August 31, 2012 by 4dancers

by Christopher Duggan

20120822_JoffreyBallet_Christopher.Duggan_169 — Derrick Agnoletti of The Joffrey Ballet in Son of Chamber Symphony; photo Christopher Duggan, courtesy Jacob’s Pillow Dance.

Last week marked the end of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival’s 80th Anniversary, and I found myself scrambling from one dress rehearsal to the other trying to squeeze in documentation of both main stage performances. I was so excited/nostalgic about the fact that this is the last week of the summer, and I wanted to capture it all.

20120822_JoffreyBallet_Christopher.Duggan_252 — Victoria Jaiani and Miguel Angel Blanco of The Joffrey Ballet in Son of Chamber Symphony; photo Christopher Duggan, courtesy Jacob’s Pillow Dance.”

I loved The Joffrey Ballet‘s program. They danced Bells by former Bolshoi Ballet dancer and San Francisco Ballet choreographer Yuri Possokhov, Age of Innocence by Edwaard Liang, and Son of Chamber Symphony, a world premiere by Stanton Welch. It’s always exciting to photograph a world premiere. My photos will be the first ones showcasing the new dance, and it makes me nervous and psyched.

20120822_JoffreyBallet_Christopher.Duggan_224 — Victoria Jaiani and Miguel Angel Blanco of The Joffrey Ballet in Son of Chamber Symphony; photo Christopher Duggan, courtesy Jacob’s Pillow Dance.

This idea is amplified at Jacob’s Pillow where world-renowned companies perform on a world stage. It’s a big deal to premiere work at the Pillow. All eyes are here. I knew the company wanted approval of the images before they were given to the press, so I wanted to be sure I delivered both quality and quantity. I made a larger number of photographs than I typically do at dress rehearsal, and prepared and edited the photos for use within hours. It’s a lot of pressure to photograph for press use, but it’s something I’ve grown used to in the fast-paced world of performance documentation.

I had a great time with The Joffrey. The dancers were so talented, and the tutus in Stanton Welch’s new work were exquisite and especially fun to photograph.

20120822_JoffreyBallet_Christopher.Duggan_159 — Yumelia Garcia and Matthew Adamczyk of The Joffrey Ballet in Son of Chamber Symphony; photo 2012 Christopher Duggan, courtesy Jacob’s Pillow Dance.

Please visit my blog if you’d like to see more from this year’s festival. I post photos from Jacob’s Pillow each Friday, and I’m doing a few special projects in the coming weeks that I’d love to share.

Finis: Photographing Dance In The Natural Light Studio

July 31, 2012 by 4dancers

20120628_YinYue_Christopher.Duggan_035 — Yin Yue, by Christopher Duggan

by Christopher Duggan

Every summer, I dream of ways to make more art at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. I love photographing performances, and you know Inside/Out is my favorite space to shoot dance, but I was craving more. I’ve always been inspired by John Lindquist’s dance photos on the elevated platform behind The Ted Shawn Theatre. (Remember the photos I shared with you in January?) The landscape around the space has changed – there are more buildings, the Pillow Pub, the Doris Duke, and the vegetation has grown – but it’s still a perfect place to photograph dance in the natural light of the beautiful Berkshires sun.

I’ve also felt inspired by Richard Avedon’s simple, powerful portraits on white, but the set-up of my Natural Light Studio itself was inspired by my friend (and photography hero) Clay Enos. I wanted to do something similar to his Street Studio at Jacob’s Pillow, and he graciously told me how to construct the outdoor studio and encouraged me to enjoy the new creative space.

So for the last few weeks, I have been playing in my new studio with dancers from Morphoses, Inside/Out, The School at Jacob’s Pillow, Yin Yue Dance, Tero Saarinen and many more. [Read more…]

A Different Kind Of Dance Team: Nel Shelby & Christopher Duggan

July 6, 2012 by 4dancers

Most of you know Christopher Duggan from his dance photography column here at 4dancers which runs the last day of the month here and is titled “Finis”. What many of you may not know is that Christopher is part of a team–his wife, Nel Shelby–is a dance videographer. Today we thought we’d share a bit more about what life is like for this talented couple in the dance world…

This is Nel’s tenth season at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. She spent the summer of 2001 as a videography intern and now serves as Festival Videographer, supervising two interns and an apprentice each season. Christopher has been Festival Photographer at the Pillow since 2006. He acts as mentor for an intern during each summer festival, and this year he will participate on the faculty in a 5-day dance photography workshop led by his esteemed colleague Rose Eichenbaum.

Deeply dedicated to the preservation and promotion of dance through documentation of live performances, Nel and Christopher often team up to provide artists with the complete package for their upcoming productions. They enjoy brainstorming with artists from the inception of a work, creating behind the scenes photographs of rehearsal and generating excitement through promos, to the final production, filming performances and providing photography for press and preservation. Based in New York City, they have worked with countless emerging, established, uptown and downtown choreographers, dance venues and presenting festivals.

Both Nel and Christopher had personal relationships with dance prior to filming and photographing the art form. Nel danced from age 2 through 22 and has a bachelor’s degree in dance. She is also a certified Pilates instructor. Movement is an incredibly important part of her routine, and because she feels kinesthetically connected to the performers she films, she finds that most of her choices are instinctual and gracefully-aligned with the choreography. Christopher has developed an aesthetic that seeks to capture the heart and integrity of each choreographer’s voice within an image. He was first attracted to dance when working on the wardrobe crew for performances in college and has felt a magnetic pull from dancers ever since. He played the doundoun in a West African group Magbana and made several trips to West Africa to study drumming and dance.

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival offers a bustling season for Christopher and Nel because of its vast variety of dance and large quantity of work – each season, their responsibilities include documenting aspects of festival culture in addition to its 20 mainstage dance performances, filming, photographing and overseeing documentation of more than 100 free performances and events, and educating students about the technical and philosophical aspects of photographing and filming dance. But its the festival’s sense of magic that keeps both artists clamoring for more each year. Situated on the beautiful Berkshires hills, nestled in majestic trees and rooted in the history of founder and modern dance visionary Ted Shawn, the Pillow is steeped in tradition but forward-thinking in its worldly and contemporary curation. It’s a place to grow, learn and find inspiration. And for Nel and Christopher, it’s home. They now own a cabin on the same road as the Pillow and cherish the thought that their daughter is growing up at the festival each summer.

4dancers talked with both of them a bit about their lives and their work with one another… [Read more…]

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