The second part of my interview with Alen MacWeeney, whose Brazilian Zouk Photo Exhibition opens this Thursday, February 25th at Lava Gina in the East Village.
Part II
| NB: | You and I originally met last summer when you came upon us dancing in Central Park. In the two years we’ve been dancing in the Park many people have taken our photos and they always promise to send us copies, but they never do. You were the first. On top of that you came back to shoot us the following week. What is it that attracted you to the dance? |
| AM: | Well, initially I thought it was this wonderful dance taking place in the open near Bethesda Fountain, where there were, I can’t quite remember, eight or twelve couple dancing in the summer in the most free and liberated way of dance that I’d ever seen. (It just seemed that both the men and women were so,) it was a very sensual kind of dance, but it also had a formality that was very appealing because it went through these movements, but those movements were also completely subject to the feelings of the people dancing and how they could just break the rules and do anything. And those that did do that, they were doing whatever they chose, they were in a world of their own. And the fact they could just do this in a dance, the women they had to kind of completely be submissive to the men in the dance, in most cases, or to the passion that seem to be in the men when they were dancing. That they did this with such great pleasure, and the people were having such great fun. And between that and the sound of the music which is very sweet, I was just completely captivated. |
| NB: | Do you have a history of photographing other kinds of dances? |
| AM: | No, none. None at all. I used to photograph very still photos of people. Whether it’s portraits or fashion, but they’ve always been involved in emotion and certain kind of passion that I either create or try to invent in the subject. |
| NB: | The way you took photos of the group originally, when you first started shooting us, is very different from the way you’re shooting now. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that has evolved? |
| AM: | At first it was the scene, to do a picture of the whole scene of the ten, twelve couples dancing. And then, I thought well I’ll go in more tightly on some couples. And then I found that it really depended a lot on the time of day how I did that, because at certain times, when I photographed in the evening, and you always danced I think it was on a Sunday evening at around six, six-thirty, the light was really getting nice and soft, but it still didn’t carry, to me, the kind of emotional quality of the dancing and so I went in tighter. Going in closer I thought I’ll get this across. But that was very difficult focusing because there’d be so much movement going on I’d keep losing focus on who was in the picture. So the best pictures seemed to be done when it was almost dark, which is really my preference in time of day for photographing, when it’s almost twilight and the shadows and the details in shadows have kind of gone black. So you’re basically looking at highlights of people, where the light is striking a face, depending on the attitude of the face, whether it’s back or up or down conveys another level of emotion. I found that the best time of day, but it was also the most difficult time because with the motion of the dancers it was hard to capture that shot. So then we went inside to the club, to Lava Gina, and then I decided I would have to light it because this club is as dark as the black hole of Calcutta. We set up lights with the help of Vincent, my assistant, and I photographed there for a couple of nights. Much, in some ways, to the distress of other people. The flash was annoying. Which I can well understand, but I wasn’t about to be deterred by a couple of objections. I think those were the most successful pictures. |
| NB: | What are some other challenges you’ve faced when photographing a zouk dancer? |
| AM: | The thing of course is the drama, the man leaning over and the woman lying back with her hair flying around, and she leans back, always back, in what looks like an act of submission, that of course is the most appealing to the camera. It might not be actually happening but it just may be part of the dance. The other part is how much the people actually enjoy the dancing. They love dancing. Everyone that I spoke to at Lava Gina really loved dancing. And all kinds of people. One man Adrain, we nicknamed him the bullfighter, El Torro, has actually changed his name I think. |
| NB: | Yes, he now goes by the name, Adrian Atorro. |
| AM: | He conveyed a kind of emotion that the best of acting couldn’t have done better. He really was immersed in it so thoroughly and so believably, this wasn’t an act, this was him. Even though he’s a systems analyst by trade. I found that some time the detail was the thing that was the most appealing. The expression on the man’s face, or it could be the woman’s face, the way a hand was on a body, the sweat, the pleasure of it all, is really what the dance is about. |
| NB: | I read that that for your book “Irish Travellers, Tinkers No More,” you spent, something like, five years among them, getting to know them and shooting them. You’ve also spent a lot of time with our group getting to know us, to where it’s safe to say that you’re looked upon as being part of the family. My question is, how important is it for you to know the subject before you can shoot them? |
| AM: | Well, I think actually its very important, but I never know how to begin or what I would like to do. I mean, when I was starting out, I thought I was going to be more like a civil right photographer, or a human rights photographer. And though I am interested in that, I never know how to begin a project, and I never had any real intention of, when I started with the travelers or the tinkers in Ireland, of doing a whole project about them. That just evolved of its own accord. And I’ve very much felt the same way about Zouk. I didn’t really think I was going to photograph every week, or try photographing every week, depending on the weather, and it has happened and I’ve enjoyed it very much and I’d like to go on doing more. |
| NB: | It sounds like you don’t really chose your subject. Something organic happens and eventually the subject sort of takes off on it’s own. |
| AM: | That’s right. And I think that’s the better way because in a sense I have deep suspicion of photo opportunists. |
| NB: | What is a photo opportunist? |
| AM: | It’s like somebody saying everybody is talking about Indian prostitutes along some road in Bombay, and they go off and do their project. Or they go do a contained war like there was in Belfast in Northern Ireland. People would go to photography school and then go shoot their action pictures in Belfast. It was like a portfolio piece. I don’t like to do things where I see the outcome. I’m not doing it to see a specific outcome, I’m doing it because it’s interesting. And I can’t see a better reason to do something than to do something for the simple reason that it looks really interesting and I’m sure other people would be interested in it if they saw it to. I just think I’m really interested in the purpose of people’s lives. I mean, what else is there? To be curious about other people’s lives and what they want to do and how to express what we can’t express other ways. And I think that this dance does express something I’ve never seen before expressed in a dance other than by professional dancers. This is pure dance. Pure amateurism, pure professionalism, or whatever you’d like to call it. But it’s a devotion to something. Whether one person wants to go and say the rosary every twenty minutes or somebody else wants to dance, but you Zouk dancers really love dancing. |
| NB: | You’re talking about passion. |
| AM: | Yes, passion. And this dance has that passion. |
| NB: | Is there ever a point when you’re done shooting a subject, to where you feel as you’ve met the challenge, the vein has been tapped and there’s no more gold left to mine and it’s time to move on to the next subject? |
| AM: | Yes, it does happen. |
| NB: | How do you know? |
| AM: | I don’t really know. As George Bernard Shaw said, “Plays aren’t finished, they’re just abandoned.” And I think much the same ways, they will be abandoned because either circumstances forbid something more to happen, or I won’t be able to do it, or I’ll have too much time constraints and it’ll just stop. But I’ll feel I’ve gone beyond just looking in as a voyeur on something that’s curious. |
| NB: | So in your mind there’s always potential to revisit a subject. |
| AM: | Yes, I just photographed somebody a few weeks ago that I had photographed when she was like twenty and she’s now in her mid fifties. I think time is the only thing that’s really interesting in photographs, how you feel about this and that and what happens twenty, thirty or forty years later. |
| NB: | The opening of the Zouk photo exhibition at Lava Gina next week in the East Village, out of the hundreds of photos you taken of the group I’m curious as to how you decided which ones would be exhibited? |
| AM: | Well that actually was very difficult, to where I wish I could have put up more. I couldn’t afford to print more and it wasn’t big enough a place to have more. Choosing the seven, originally it was going to be six but I really wanted it to be eight, they were just done on the basis of what I thought most expressed the dance, although in variety. It was very difficult to chose. I’d put one up on the wall, then I’d take one away and I’d change it. It’s an issue of balance, does this do enough one vertical and the rest horizontal. And also, what’s surprising about it that people don’t expect to see? The two women lying horizontally over the arm of Jeremey was kind of an amusing picture, so that kind of counteracted the very serious emotion of the man from Washington with a hat. |
| NB: | Dahyu |
| AM: | So it’s an issue of what helps the other, rather than what might kill the other if I put in two pictures that were too close together. There were many. I could have done twenty pictures. I think the photograph of you, Nicholas and Addy is like a poster for Lava Gina, a poster for Zouk. I mean you are absolutely passionate, serious and looking down on Addy who has thrown herself back. It couldn’t be more perfect. Then we have the bullfighter leaning with passion toward Kristina who has that very pale skin. It’s a combination of everything, his clothes, his attitude, hers. If I could explain it I wouldn’t be taking photographs. |
| NB: | So, if I understand you, the exhibition should be viewed not as a series of individual pictures, but as a series in which each piece supports the other? |
| AM: | Yes, and also stand on their own as a kind of a symbol of the dance, or one part of the dance without ever showing what a full dance is. It is the fragments that make up the whole. And it is how those fragments play off each other that make the thing seem, well, curious, or I don’t understand this, I want more. |
| NB: | So intrigue is a big part of it. |
| AM: | Yes, surprise, intrigue and you don’t ever have a full answer. |
| NB: | What type of impact do you hope this exhibition will have, what do you want people to come away with? |
| AM: | I think it’s a great form of liberation for people. It has everything that young adults, or medium age or even old adults desire. We all want affection, love, warmth, emotion, and a feeling of desire toward each other. And this somehow this dance brings it out in people. And it’s not limited to one person must always dance with the other person, like a boy and girlfriend. The dance ends, they switch they change around, and they just go ahead and dance so more. It’s basically a very simple thing. Dance. Music. |
| NB: | Is it safe to say that you are going to continue photographing Zouk dancers? |
| AM: | Yes. Without a doubt. Wherever they may be. |
for anyone who is trying to understand why we love zouk so much, i think this is this quote from Alen says it best:
“I think it’s a great form of liberation for people. It has everything that young adults, or medium age or even old adults desire. We all want affection, love, warmth, emotion, and a feeling of desire toward each other. And this somehow this dance brings it out in people. And it’s not limited to one person must always dance with the other person, like a boy and girlfriend. The dance ends, they switch they change around, and they just go ahead and dance so more. It’s basically a very simple thing. Dance. Music.”
It was great to read about Alen’s feelings and impressions towards Zouk… love his work and love the Zouk photo exhibition even more since I’ve read this. Thanks for sharing an amazing interview! It’s such a personal piece. Look forward to seeing him around more!