A DANCER DIES TWICE

A quote by Martha Graham reads “A dancer, more than any other human being, dies two deaths: the first, the physical when the powerfully trained body will no longer respond as you wish it would. [...] I only wanted to dance. Without dancing, I wished to die.”

The life of a dancer is short and intense; the emotion of leaving the dance is as key as the emotion of living the dance. So what happens once the last dance is over? Experiencing the bereavement of a terminated passion can be bewildering and identifying a new area of career interest daunting. At an age when most people are established in their careers, a retired dancer must transition from an institutionalised existence to carve out a new career, establishing themselves at an age where society assumes this has already been achieved.

This body of work, taken over a two year period and photographed in situ using the new place of work as the backdrop, captures images of dancers who have been forced, through age or injury, to retire from dance and establish a career outside that of a performer.