In portraits of Graham’s most famous “Appalachian Spring,” Smith plays the Bride: Viewers can see her flying ebulliently over a wooden fence, with a sunny blue sky sparkling behind her.
“For something like “Appalachian Spring,” we were not able to get the set in the studio for the photoshoot and we thought it would be fun to take it outside,” Ory said. “We wanted it to feel like the rolling hills [that Martha evokes].”
“I remember seeing the morning brightening as we were driving to the site and having a feeling of anticipation and excitement, very much like the feeling I have before entering the stage at the beginning of the ballet,” Smith said. “Some of the locations have actually become part of what I envision and think about when I’m dancing the role of the Bride: the fence, the horses, the sunrise, the open green expanse. It reminds me of my home, back in Bath and the Cotswolds in England.”
Many of Browar and Ory’s photos were taken outdoors in the Hamptons, where the couple has a home. In the book, viewers can find So Young An and Lloyd Knight supporting each other on top of a large rock by the ocean in duet from “Circe,” a stoic Williams catching a silver light on her cheek as she stands barefoot on a pebbled beach in “Dark Meadow,” and much more.
“We woke up very early one summer morning and went to this beautiful beach next to some sand dunes,” Williams recounted. “The light was hitting the water so beautifully, so we decided to take photos there, even though it was not a planned location!”
“Most of us were just waking up, and the light would be so magical,” Ory said. “We’d have an hour at the most to take the photo, and then it was almost as if we’d dreamed the whole thing, like it never happened.”
In addition to preserving this living radiance within their photography, Ory and Browar ultimately hope that their books can act as artifacts from an art form that typically leaves no traces.
“The dancers don’t have anything tangible to take from a performance and a performance is very fluid; it’s ephemeral,” Browar said. “[With our photos], we are able to freeze these moments in time for the dancers. We realized, too, from our previous two books that it also exposes a lot of people who would not normally go see dance.”
“We had a lot of collectors of our first book who were not necessarily dance audiences, which surprised us. A lot of them started to see dance afterwards,” Ory said. “Having a book brings new audiences and exposes new people to the art form.”
Martha Graham Dance Company: 100 Years will be available for purchase on October 7.
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