Act 4 is the briefest of the Acts in Bill Hayward's Chasing Dragons: An Uncommon Memoir in Photographs. It opens with a lovely image of the prima ballerina Kyra Nichols in high arabesque. The dancer stands on one leg, and extends the other behind her body so that the legs are at 180º. One arm is extended toward the floor, the other is parallel to her raised back leg.The position requires tremendous strength and balance and is often quite fleeting. In Hayward's photo Nichols is barely visible. You see her face in profile, her arms, and her silver toe-shoes. You discern her position from her shadow on the floor, cast on a rectangle of light.
The pictures that follow (sixteen on two pages) document Bill's "The Intimacies Project" collaboration with Marinov Dance (in photo above) and "Bent" a film collaboration with Karen Furman and Grounded Aerial. I was among the lucky few who attended a performance of Marinov Dance that Bill held in his studio. It was a striking performance that I wrote about here.
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