Chris Bickford

I’ve recently put together a book of a performance by London’s Rambert Dance Company in Montepulciano, Italy that I shot this summer. The performance was part of Montepulciano’s summer arts festival, and ran for two nights in Piazza Grande, which holds the distinction of being the highest piazza in Tuscany. Unfortunately for the dancers, that means the nights can get quite chilly, even in summer. The company put on two flawless shows however, and we all had a fine time hanging out in the café afterwards.

The bulk of these shots are seconds apart, and come from a single piece, out of about six or so that were performed that night. As I was shooting a live performance in a public square, it was a little tricky moving around, trying to find the right angle, trying to get close enough for a good shot, without being obtrusive or annoying to the paying spectators. In the end, I think I fired off the motor drive a little too much during this piece, and my newfound Italian photographer friends ribbed me about being a machine-gunner, but I did get some cool shots…

The Rambert Dance Company is one of England’s most prestigious and preeminent modern dance groups. It was founded in 1926, and currently has 22 dancers. The Montepulciano show was a showcase of works in progress, and the dancers, as they put it, were “on holiday” there, dancing for free in order to try out some new work and enjoy a few days in a Tuscan hill town. They were, in addition to being spectacular dancers, a great bunch of people, and I hope to run into them again.

This piece has got me thinking about taking things in a certain direction. Something about what happens in performance, when individual personalities lose themselves to the dance and become beings of pure movement…Something like that…