Friday 8 October 2021

The Street Diva | "Dance Like This"


Things often fall into place for a reason...so when I noticed Meg in Washington Square Park, and photographed her on-the-fly (see my older post about it) being with a group of dancers, it was for a reason.

Through what I call the Instagram 'tentacles', we connected and I proposed we produce an audio slideshow merging still photographs, video and a soundtrack of her style of dancing, and which would feature the grunginess of the SoHo neighborhood.

A day and a time were agreed on, and the photo/video session took place on Mercer street. Meg brought her portable Bluetooth speaker to play her music tracks while I filmed her moves.

I soon found out that her favored dancing style was 'Dancehall"...defined as a genre of Jamaican popular music originated in the late 1970s having roots in Folk and Reggae. I initially mistook it for hip hop, but it's a very distinct sound and style and quite different.

A quick search provided a list of catchy Dancehall songs, and I settled for 'Dance Like This' by A. Pass, a well-known Ugandan musician and songwriter. I thought it was a perfect match for Meg's style.

I worked on the multimedia piece for a week, and uploaded the result on YouTube (above) and on my Vimeo channel as well.

The stills were made using the Fuji GFX50S/45mm f2.8 and the X-Pro2/Zeiss 12mm. The video was done with the GFX50S/45mm. 

REI | De Las Flores

REI by Tewfic El-Sawy on on Exposure