The next best thing

By Timothy A. Clary

NEW YORK CITY—You shoot a lot of pictures when you’re shooting dance. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s ballet, or modern dance, or ballroom dance—every time, you have one frame that’s just perfect. It can be something subtle, like a hand or a foot. But there is always one where everything is just perfect.

I suppose that’s why I enjoy shooting it so much—it’s a nice feeling having captured a perfect shot.

But there is another one. You see, I’m the worst dancer in the world. When I was little, my Mom put my sister and me into ballroom dancing lessons. It was a total flop. I liked it, I just couldn’t do it.

In high school, you had to dance to meet girls and I just couldn’t dance. So to see these people, who are the best in the world… I’m kind of envious of anyone who can do this. I wish I could do it, but I can’t, so I’ll do the next best thing—I’ll take pictures of it.

I’ve found that whatever type of dance there is, it all seems to point to ballet. Whether they are dancing modern or tango, they all seem to have the same ballet training to give them those perfect poses. It just all seems to revolve around ballet.

Ballet is my favorite to photograph. I think out of all the dance that you can see, ballet would be the number one. Because it’s just so beautiful.

It doesn’t matter what ballet it is, or what company it is. It’s just beautiful to watch. The men and the women. It’s just aesthetically beautiful.

Sometimes it’s just a foot. Or the way they arch their back or point their hands. Or just a simple movement.

And then you have the shows, the outfits. There is just something that sucks you into watching them. They do stuff that no-one else can do. I mean, who can move like that?

Over the years, I’ve witnessed some funny moments. One time I was at the child tryouts for the School of American Ballet. And there was this one little boy who was misbehaving a bit. And the director was there at the time and told him to keep it down, but the kid kept talking. So the director said, “Don’t you want to be a dancer and be in the Nutcracker?” And the kid, without skipping a beat, said, “No, my Mom is making me do this.” Everyone around just smiled at that one.

I have to admit that once I got into it, I decided that maybe my kid would succeed where her old man had failed and put her in ballet class when she was four years old. But I guess she has my genes in that respect because that was as big a flop as me with ballroom dancing. She was having none of it.

As I went to more and more of these things, I also got to know a lot of the dancers, which has been a nice benefit. On top of being able to do what they do, they’re also all very interesting people. They all have the same walk, the same medical problems. Dancing, especially the ballet, is very difficult on the body. Some of them have careers that are pretty long and some of them burn out pretty quickly.

Funnily enough, I don’t like to go and just watch ballet. I need to have a camera with me. It’s hard to sit and watch something once you’ve shot it. You’re just itching to capture those moments that you’re seeing. It’s always been something that I’ve wanted to do. But I can’t do it, so this is the next best thing.