Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Moving Into Dance







Our Joburg Sketchers group was given kind permission to sit in on a practice session at Moving Into Dance, a professional company which develops and produces award winning Contemporary African dancers, choreographers, arts administrators and teachers, many from disadvantaged communities. It was exhilarating, not to mention exhausting (I know I know, sitting there on my derrière...) watching and trying to sketch the ceaseless movements of the young first year dancers - it's obvious they must have come a long way since January.
I thought perhaps there would be some repetitive practice movements that would give us a chance to capture postures, but those were few and far between as they flew, spun, stomped, twirled and leaped around the room, sometimes almost landing in our laps where we sat lined up on a bench at one end. So we had to do what we could... I drew with pencil as I couldn't find a gap in the action to even reach for my watercolours at the time, but added colour later to help define some of the frantic lines I put down - and to convey some of the energy of these beautiful dancers. Only 5-10 of them will go through into second year, and even fewer into third - heartbreaking I'm sure for the ones who don't make it, everyone is passionate and dedicated - how on earth do they choose?!

8 comments:

Sadami said...

Cathy, wonderful! I love them all. Best wishes, Sadami

Cheryl Wright said...

Gosh Cathy, these are fantastic. PHEW! Now I'm exhausted.

dinahmow said...

I'm just home from a brisk 3kms walk and I see this.Whew!You'e certainly conveyed energy!

Cathy Gatland said...

Thanks again Sadami for your ongoing encouragement!

Cathy Gatland said...

Hope you recover quickly, thanks Cheryl... and thank you for being my very first email subscriber! :-)

Cathy Gatland said...

Thanks Dinah - I should go for a 3km walk too and not just get vicariously tired out!

RH Carpenter said...

You captured the movement and energy of the group so well!!

http://carolking.wordpress.com said...

I can really feel the movement in these. Wonderful gesture paintings.