Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival

NYC Ballet MOVES, photo by Christopher Duggan

 

Filming & Photographing Vail Dance Festival 2022

by | Aug 10, 2022 | Dance Feature, Dance Film, Livestream, Performance Video | 0 comments

This is a guest post by Christopher Duggan

Opening Night at Vail Dance Festival 2022

Vail Dance Festival starts off with an Opening Night that acts as a sampler of the performances to come. It features some really beautiful works and interesting collaborations that the Festival will premiere.

NYC Ballet MOVES & Ephrat Asherie’s ODEON

The next two nights of the festival are company nights – this year, we had NYC Ballet MOVES and Ephrat Asherie’s ODEON. I’ve photographed ODEON before. The show is so energetic and exciting. The live music, the body percussion from the artists… Seeing it all happen 9,000 feet above sea-level… crazy!!! I was in tears at the end of the show, texting Ephrat: “I am still filled with excitement and joy from your performance last night!!!” I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Above photos of Ephrat Asherie Dance by Christopher Duggan

Artists in “Work Mode”

Artistic Director Damian Woetzel says from the stage to the audience every night that VDF is about “next steps” — for choreographers, dancers, new pairings, new partnerships, debuts, new works… It’s really exciting to be here, and you can sense the energy that everyone is in work mode. All the artists rehearsing and choreographing, Nel’s team filming and editing, me personally photographing and meeting editing deadlines. It’s exhausting and exhilarating at the same time.

Damian Woetzel speaks on opening night, by Christopher Duggan

Artist-in-Residence Caili Quan

Watching Artist-in-Residence Caili Quan work with new dancers who she may not normally collaborate with is amazing. Damian shared that he gathers the ingredients in the off-season, then during the Festival, they put everything on the stove to cook. Finally, the artists can share the meal with the audience in performance!

Above photos, in order: Dance Aspen, Robbie Fairchild & Byron Tittle, Limón Dance Company; all by Christopher Duggan
We’ll be sharing much more video and photography from Vail in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!!

Follow us on Instagram for more in-the-moment content, too: @nelshelby & @cdugganphoto

Christopher Duggan is Nel’s husband! He has been the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival photographer since 2006, photographer for Vail Dance since 2021, and has photographed many world-renowned dance companies during his career. This summer, Christopher’s work is on exhibition in Blake’s Barn at Jacob’s Pillow, in an installation called: “Now & Then: Evocative Dance Portraits by Christopher Duggan.” You can also find Christopher behind-the-video-camera and operating our drone at Nel Shelby Productions. NSP always offers photography as part of our dance services, because we believe dance photography is an essential part of our media toolkit. That includes photographing live performance, in-rehearsal creative processes, and creative portrait shoots. You can learn more about the depth and breadth of Christopher’s dance photography here.