DANCERS

 TEXT BY MICHELE SALIMBENI, PHILOSOPHER AND FILMMAKER.

"Dance is certainly one of the most ancestral, ancient and powerful human expressions. Through it the human being was able to communicate feelings, fears, joys, concepts in a universal way and, long before the advent of language. Unlike spoken language, in fact, body language has no cultural and identity barriers (silent cinema is a perfect example of this) as dance, as Martha Graham argued, is the hidden language of the soul. Since the first shamanic dances of prehistoric times, the expression of dance has crossed all the arts transversally, infusing them with the idea and concept of dynamism. From the dance and gestural theater of Jerzy Grotowski to the musical comedy of the golden age of Hollywood, dance has always supported the other arts by introducing its “vital momentum” into them.

The great director John Ford argued that the three most beautiful - and therefore most cinematic - things to shoot were: landscapes, horses and people dancing. And the many and beautiful dances that are seen in his films were the moment in which the community of individuals came together and united, with courage, to face the adverse forces of fate and history.

Dance is also one of the central themes of Elijah Aaronson's  photographic art. Eljah returns and reveals - through her art and thanks to her immense talent - the intrinsic properties of body language and dance expression. And she does it through the portraits and the perfect staging of her models. In her photographs, the movement crystallizes in an eternal "fixity" which becomes, through its pathos, a prayer. Prayer addressed to Nature and to "being". Dance as a silent revolution to get back in balance with Nature. In Elijah Aaronson's  splendid photographs the movement, suspended in the image, is internal. It is in the gaze of the observer. In the motion of commition that the photo causes to the viewer.

Since those of Elijah are "active" photos, which establish a metaphysical relationship with the viewer. In fact, nothing is more revealing than movement and, as Martha Graham argued, is “this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unsued” and making "that moment important" is exactly what Elijah Aaronson  does with her Art."

MICHELE SALIMBENI