DANCE (Motta Photography)

Focusing primarily on dancers who have performed with the Paris Opera Ballet, this portfolio of forty-six duotone images taken between 1953 and 1994 pays homage to the art as revealed in dancers' bodies. Rudolf Nureyev stands intently playing a piano in a prop-filled studio; Suzanne Farrell, en pointe, gazes into a skylight, her tall silhouette seeming to float toward it; groups of dancers relax in a classroom, casually stretching while waiting to perform; Sylvie Guillem perches on a stool, gazing cooly at the camera over a folded knee; Carolyn Carlson peers intently into a mirror, brushing powder onto her hollow cheeks.
Maintaining that dancers posses a "corporal intelligence" that gives them a unique ability to fill empty space with the beauty of their movements, Jeanloup Sieff has captured both the fleeting gestures of individual dancers and the timeless world of their profession.