One of Matthew Willman's portraits of dancers , on dispaly at Art in the Yard
One of Matthew Willman's portraits of dancers , on dispaly at Art in the Yard
Image: Supplied

Matthew Willman is tenacious, and this led to him being commissioned as photographer for the Nelson Mandela Foundation and being Mandela's personal photographer for 10 years.

From the age of 15 he was convinced Mandela held a special place for him and he worked towards meeting and serving the former president. Over nine years he wrote 72 letters to Mandela and after a project on Robben Island he was approached to work in the foundation archives.

This led to a very personal relationship with Mandela and today his work is central to the Mandela Centre of Memory and the Presidential Library in Johannesburg.

For his latest project he turns to dance, and the movement between body and space.

What attracts you to dancers? I danced for 20 years in ballet. As a result I know in intimate detail how a dancer's body feels. I also understand how it looks and interprets movement according to shape and space.

When I work with ballet dancers I feel as though we're both engaged in a conversation. I never know who walks away more fulfilled, me having achieved the look I want or the dancer being given permission to just create and move in a space.

There's a friction of movement and stillness in the dance shots - how do you achieve that? Balance... it's a balance of natural or trained ability in the dancer which, when married to my keen eye, captures that decisive moment of full expression. It's fleeting but it's there, an ease that belies great skill.

The situations are unusual and idiosyncratic, how does that happen? I've worked in documentary photography my whole career covering assignments for NGOs from HIV-Aids to a water security project, from places like Ethiopia and Mozambique.

When you work in these environments nothing is planned, you dive in and work your entire shoot constantly looking for images, pushing yourself to see beyond the given.

It feels the same with this collection. I'm only with the dancers for a short time, often in a foreign city and I've learnt to pre-visualise the situation. I piece together the movement, the lighting and the setting. It's tough on so many levels but thrilling when you know you got the shot.

How many dancers have you photographed? Over 45 dancers from different countries. It's an ongoing project that has taken me all over the world, for over 10 years.

How many more? I'd like to complete 60 individual dancers with the aim to tie the collection into a book. It will take a while. Later this year I'll go to Germany to work with the Hamburg Ballet and then to the States.

Matthew Willman at Art in the Yard at Franschhoek until Thursday, artintheyard.co.za


This article was originally published in The Times

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