Thursday 12 January 2012

Sketchbook: English National Ballet

Charley Peters, Drawing: English National Ballet (2012), Pencil on Paper


Today I was privileged enough to have access to draw dancers from the English National Ballet rehearsing for the production of Strictly Gershwin at the Coliseum Theatre, London. During their daily class I recorded the movement of the dancers, focusing on the space inhabited on the stage by both individual members of the company and also groups of dancers moving in harmony. At times the drawings concentrated on expressing the movements of the dancers' arms or feet during their warm up exercises and other pieces plotted the dancers as they traversed the stage, using the pages of my sketchbook to visually locate the dancers. The drawing process necessitated me to look at the dancers at all times, rather than the paper, and the drawings were revealed as finished sketches at the end of each exercise or rehearsed excerpt from the production. Each drawing lasted for the same duration as a particular exercise or sequence of movements. Some examples of the drawings produced today are below.

Charley Peters, Drawings: English National Ballet (2012), Pencil on Paper