Silk Asylum: Refuge Among the Sylphs

Charles A. McCullers

For more than twenty years, I had the honor of serving as principal photographer for Atlanta Ballet, and during that time, my greatest joy was the simple act of observation. My time with the dancers bordered on the reverent, it was both meditative and fluid, filled with creativity, collaboration, experimentation and discovery. These moments were adrenalized with the thrill of capturing the passion of performance and tempered with the admiration of witnessing the rigors of practice. This deconstructed and liminal experience offers the curious-minded viewer an opportunity to consider both sides of the stage curtain, alongside the performers, and without the duality of a fourth wall impediment. 

I am fortunate. No Observer-Searcher could ever find more creative satisfaction than to work at the feet of an elegant muse. My images bear witness to the process of becoming; the material/ethereal, the aspirational attempt, and the private/public performance are all embodied within the spirit of this non-repeatable, reoccurring event, referred to as Dance. The cadence of the dancers’ heartbeat pulses rhythmically and acts as an internal metronome that governs emotions and provokes expression. The deliverance of this expression, offered in terms of animation and emotional availability, resides deep inside the psyche of each dancer and is a gift they offer without terms or condition. The camera collects the evidence.

Whether these images illustrate the tattered satin of a stained pointe shoe, the diffused silhouette of a ballerina, or the staccato-stabbed foot-tracks of a seasoned dance floor; they all represent a version of the same thing: a dancer’s empirical imprint of expression. This evidence of being has been passed through the ages, arcing back to the caves of Prehistoria where Humankind moved to a percussive beat, and painted their walls in pigment with the evidence of their own existence. This song and dance continues today as it did then, offering a means of expression and memorialization to all those who seek existential asylum and choose to enter the arena.