Isabella Rosastro Performance
Dance and stage photography: a performance by the dancer Isabella Rosastro, in stills and on film. A dance film with Isabella Rosastro. Shot in a darkened…
A dance film with Isabella Rosastro. Shot in a darkened hall with haze: the dancer in a white jacket against the light, arms bent, the smoke lit from behind, nothing else but steelwork in the dark. Haze makes light visible and movement legible — in dance it is not an effect but the means by which the silhouette comes free of the background at all.
Backlight through haze is the only lighting that turns an empty hall into a stage. It draws the dancer’s contour, it makes visible a space that would otherwise not exist, and it leaves out everything standing at the edges.
The haze has to be kept up constantly. It drifts off, it gathers on one side, and the amount that was right two minutes ago is not any more — on a dance shoot somebody watches the machine while the camera runs.
And movement against backlight demands prediction. Release the shutter once a figure has reached the edge of the light and you are late; the position is fixed in advance, and the dancer gets a mark she can hit without looking.
- Dancer
- Isabella Rosastro
