Exhibit at Middlebury College, Mahaney Center for the Arts

Fallward. by Šara Stranovsky

 To fall. To play. To remember. To move forward. To look backward. To turn inward.  Fallward is a dance photography project that explores feelings of play and memory linked to the season of fall. Dancers embody what fall means to them. Celebrating New York City and its surrounding parks as refuges from the bustle of city life, this five-year-long project is a celebration of dancers, color, and the importance of reconnecting with play. 

A selection from the larger 40-image project is now on display at the Mahaney Center for the Arts at Middlebury College until December 10th, as part of an invitation from the Department of Dance. 

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Deconstructed Selfie

In September, dance-friend Chia-Hui Cheng and I set forth to deconstruct the concept of the "Selfie."  The Selfie. Taking our own pictures. Are selfies vain? Can they be humble and exploratory?  We often try so hard to mask that we are in fact taking photos of ourselves. And sometimes we own them, unabashedly sending ourselves into the abyss of the internet and beyond. But what are we doing? We are segmenting parts of ourselves. Drawing focus to certain parts. Masking others. Who is the voyeur? Who is the artist? Who is the subject? When are you looking away, to really just look at yourself?  When are we taking a selfie for someone else? When are we taking someone else's photos while really thinking about ourselves?  When are we taking a selfie and wishing we were someone else? We explored the matrix of these negotiations and ideas behind the myriad of selfies seen by the second, in performative photographic form. Are we honest? Are we humble? Or are we vain? 

 

And then, of course... As dancers.....  Chia-Hui and I continued to let these ideas simmer into our bodies as we danced away from the mirrors.