Artist reception: “No More Red Shoes: The Art of Ballet and Motherhood” (Lucy Gray)

Artist reception for Lucy Gray. Lucy Gray's photographs tell the stories of three prima ballerinas and their families. Since the late 1980's when the dancer's union put a leave-of-absence clause in their base contract, ballerinas have been able to work while pregnant and return to work after giving birth. This change is extraordinary in that it allows dancers to defy the myth that the dance director must dominate and influence every aspect of a ballerina's life in order that her work triumph.

The photographs take the viewer into the lives of the three ballerinas; recording practice, performance, families, joys and worries. The dancers welcomed Ms. Gray into their homes and San Francisco Ballet director, Helgi Tomasson, gave the artist access to the dance studios. Gray integrates photographs of stage work under lights with intimate scenes of personal lives. One sequence shows one of the ballerinas giving birth to her second son. The physical reality of having a baby has been placed near by images of the same woman on stage, the embodiment of romance and desire.

In San Francisco, Paris, and New York, we see the ballerinas working on their craft: alone, with other dancers and directors, and sometimes, between playing with their children who are often present with their mothers and fathers at the studios. The family shares the dancer's lives and shapes the work. Through her close personal involvement with the dancers, the photographer learned that the dancer's relationships with their families were more important than their work and that this distance improved their stage performance. Gray states, “the commitment to a personal life made these women better on the job.”