It was a warm and gorgous morning as I headed to the Gibney Studios in downtown NYC to observe and capture Choreographer Jessica Chen.
Jessica is in the very early stages of creating various works. When I arrived she greeted me and we made a bit of small talk but I made a point to leave her to work on her own, as she usually likes to do to prepare before her dancers arrive for the rehearsal. Slowly they filtered in, chatting and warming up, the room grew more and more humid.
Jessica was working with a dancer on some very intricate, specific and detailed movement, first demonstrating, and then passing it on to him to work on. They went back and forth, taking turns dancing the phrase, it almost blurring together into a pas de deux at a point. I was listening so intently and watching, enjoying it that I had sort of forgot my camera in my hand..this sort of happens to me, it's a bit amusing I guess, I've said it before that the dancer part inside of me comes to the forefront sometimes and I lose myself in that dance. However I managed to snap myself out of that because all of a sudden it happened incredibly fast--Jessica--who is a beautiful dancer in her own right--in seconds threw herself into the movement, the camera found my eye, and caught her.