by Rahi Rezvani, photographer
choreography: sad case by sol león & paul lightfoot
photo: rahi rezvani
“All my life, I’ve nurtured a fascination for the human body and their faces. In my role as a photographer I always try to capture them in a way that is meaningful to me and their context. When I was introduced to Sol (León) and Paul (Lightfoot) by NDT’s artistic producer Anders Hellström in 2006 to shoot their award winning piece Shoot the Moon, it felt like I was dropped at the perfect place at the perfect time. I’ve learned a tremendous amount through the years of working with NDT: the language of the body, its unending range of expression, the uniqueness of each facial feature, the symbolism, and everything that is unusual and unique to this company. It turned out to be a perfect fit.
NDT is like a river, it never stops flowing and is always changing. The dancers’ schedules are rigorous, so when it comes to photographing the pieces there is little room for planning and I have to capture it in a very short amount of time. When I photograph a ballet at NDT I literally step into it, in an effort to catch its spirit. I become a part of it, organically moving through the space and its patterns. I walk with the dancers and I see a different perspective of the work. It’s like running through a beautiful meadow. There is one picture I took of Guido (Dutilh) licking his shoulder in Walk the Demon by Marco Goecke. We really breathed face to face there. Those moments are very intense and so intimate.NDT is known for going to the maximum. There
simply isn’t any other way, it became the company’s signature and the same goes for my approach to working. One time, I was so caught up in trying to take a picture of Lydia (Bustinduy) that I didn’t even notice I was getting so close to the edge of the stage that I fell off of it, three and a half meters down. And even mid fall, I was still shooting. It never stops.”
