dancers among us: a celebration of joy in the everyday
11/17/12
— art, beauty, comedy, dance, lifestyle
recently, the washington post profiled photographer jordan matter and his book dancers among us. here’s jordan talking about the project:
The inspiration for this book came to me one afternoon as I watched my son, Hudson, playing with his toy bus. I was trying to keep pace with his three-year-old mind as he got deeper and deeper into a fantasy involving nothing more than a yellow plastic box and armless figurines. At least that’s what I saw. He saw frantic commuters rushing to catch the 77 local bus to Australia. He jumped in place, mouth open and slapping his knees, joyously reacting to a world I couldn’t see, but one powerfully present for him.
What happens to this enthusiasm, this ability to be wholly present in the moment? Why are these pure moments of passion so often replaced with cynicism, boredom, and indifference? As I played with my son, I thought about creating photographs that would show the world as if through his eyes. The people in the images would be alive and in the moment, celebrating all aspects and emotions of everyday life.
check out a sample of his work below (with more pics here). spotted at thesmithian.
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- “Mama’s Boy” features dancer Sun Chong with his mother on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. “I had to jump, like, 100 times,” Chong said. “The photo is great, but it was painful. The ground was really hard, and it was winter, and I had to take off my coat, and every time I landed it was painful.”
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- “Big Day”- A beaming bride-to-be in her underwear and veil vaults through a bridal shop as if she’d just flown out of the white satin gown her maid of honor is holding. Says Kaufman, “You can almost hear Natalie Wood trilling ‘I Feel Pretty.’”
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- Chicago – Kara Lozanovski
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- Yankee Stadium – Parisa Khobdeh
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- Sarasota, FL – Danielle Brown
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- Seattle – Claire Conaty
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- “Rise Above It All” features Michelle Fleet in New York. Matter could only get about four shots of Fleet’s pose because the people on the bench got up and left.
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- “Surrender” features dancer Rachel Bell in Baltimore. Bell draped herself over the muzzle of a cannon on Federal Hill. “You try to breathe and relax and get your leg up as high as you can,” Bell said. “I’m sweating ridiculously.”
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- Philadelphia – Evgeniya Chernukhina
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- “Double Take” features Angela Dice and Demetrius McClendon
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- “VIP Treatment” features Marcella Guarino in New York. Wrote Washington Post dance critic Sarah Kaufman: “[Matter’s] book frames those moments in life when feelings are too intense for words. Those times when, if you’re watching them fictionalized on a stage in a darkened theater, the singing and dancing take over.”
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