Whether you have a passion for photography or a passion for dance, dancing is a beautiful art and should be captured! Have you heard your dance teacher say “Make the picture”? A common dance teacher-ism, this means that when you complete a move, such as a turn, to make it a pretty picture. We all know from our stage photos that completing that picture is so important! Let’s create a shareable look at dance
Show the Behind-the-Scenes
Typically when people think about dancing or dancers, they think pretty. They think everything is perfect, beautiful, and graceful. When in reality, if you are a dancer then you know that is not true. There is so much more that goes into dancing beyond just “looking pretty” on stage. There is blood, sweat, and tears. Even things such as the bruises you get from floor choreography or how your feet hurt from being on pointe all day. Capture what it is really like behind the curtain for a dancer, all the raw, rough, hard work that goes into the graceful performances that you see on stage. Don’t forget the silly moments, too, the rehearsal laughter and teambuilding!
An Audience Member’s Point-of-View
There is a reason people love to see dancers perform. The crowd always gets the best view of the dancers, and the lights seem to shine just right. So, take a seat from an audience point of view. That way you can see what everyone else gets to see. Snap a couple of pictures of a friend’s dance! It can be interesting to see just how different it looks from the audience compared to backstage. It can be especially fun to get to play around with the lighting and the different shadows it makes on stage. Bonus points if the performances use things like props or multi-colored lighting to make your pictures more interesting.
Putting in the Work
Take a camera to practice and show the process of learning a routine. Capture the way that teammates will help each other out to get a turn sequence or a jump right, the way that they have to redo their bun or ponytail multiple times throughout the practice. This is something that, if you aren’t a dancer or aren’t close to one, you most likely wouldn’t get a chance to see. This puts an interesting perspective on dance, as the studio is truly where the actual magic is made. The stage is just where it is performed.
What does a snapshot of your dance world look like?
