Project

Ophelia’s Darkroom

“Ophelia’s Darkroom” is a four-hour workshop that combines photography and choreography. Based on the painting “Ofelia” (1853) by John Everett Millais, seven participants produce their own photo motifs through dance.

Inspired by the “darkroom” as a darkened and closed room in which practices of translation take place, no chemical processes are carried out here to convert a negative into a positive, in contrast to conventional photographic development. Instead, the dancers develop dance scores and rules for a real-time composition. During the performance, the dancers communicate with the camera and become photographers themselves.

Millais’ motif shows the figure of Ophelia dying, surrounded by water and magnificent nature in bloom. Away from this romanticized, natural environment – in a darkened and closed theater stage – the dancers slip into the skin of Ophelia and explore an imaginary natural space to generate movement. In their engagement with the movements captured in the image, they creatively draw on the dynamic and multi-layered archive of movement in their own bodies. At the same time, the workshop creates a space in which a physical confrontation takes place not only with one’s own viewing habits of the female body, but also with nature.

*This project description was provided to the Green Office by the respective team.

Sophia Bünzow, Christel Clerc