4AM – SPECTACULUM MAGAZINE

KAREN GHOSTLAW

// Karen is a visual storyteller whose photographs encompass details and abstractions that explore a unique vision of the world. She wants her photographs to engage the viewers and make them think. Karen shared with us a set of photographs from a dance workshop of the choreographer and dancer Bryn Cohn and Artists, BC+A in the New York Hudson Valley.

“Everything you can imagine is real.”

Pablo Picasso

What draws you to art?

“It is what drives me. Ever since I was a little girl I had to make things. I am a process driven person. It took me many years of exploring a multitude of processes to find that the photographic process was the one for me. I find inspiration in all art, from performing art to installation art, music, anything at all that someone made, interests me. I saturate myself in the arts! Can’t get enough! Give me more, give me more, give me more!”

What impressed you most about the experience of photographing these dancers?

“The process of creating art in this way, with these artists, on this piece. I loved how everyone contributed and interpreted the work in such unique but symbiotic ways. They were all connected but still thinking independently and creatively. The energy encompassed all and everything in the room, almost commanding the light that came in like a spot light through the windows. We all worked in unison.”

Bryn Cohn + Artists, BC + A, is a creative movement agency that specialises in choreography for film, television, commercials, fashion and live performance. This series of photographs are from a unique opportunity Karen had to work very closely with the choreographer Bryn Cohn and her company, to develop a new piece of work at an artist residency at Kaatsbaan in the northern Hudson Valley in New York. The piece, entitled 4 AM, was developed around the RAVE culture. BC + A’s mission at the time was to build “performative worlds” or encompassed theatrical experiences that spoke to realism and fantasy simultaneously. The intention of their work and their collaborations was to recognise each person within the dancer first and foremost – to allow audiences to relate and have access to the intimacy and humanity that guided their creative process. An element of risk manifested through finding edges in the movement – places of unpredictable and spontaneous action.

Karen had full freedom to move and shoot with the dancers, making for an incredible amount of energy and flow in the room. The piece was physically demanding as well as mentally challenging with every beat. This is a rare insight into the process of choreography and dance, and how the contributions from all come together, creating these images, at once still and moving.

Images may be cropped for layout. Click on the photos to see the original version.