Project Statement:
“The hardest working people in show business may well be ballet dancers. And at New York City Ballet, none work harder than the dancers in its lowest rank, the corps de ballet.” The New York Times brought me into the story of Claire Kretszchmar, a “rising star” of the New York City Ballet corps. In January, I followed her during an exhausting, yet typical, 48 hours of dance class, costume fittings, make up applications, physical therapy, endless rehearsals and multiple performances in front of a packed house. As I struggled to keep up, shoulders aching, sweating over the day’s schedule, she never skipped a beat.
Artist Bio:
Sasha Arutyunova is a Moscow-born, Brooklyn-based photographer. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, California Sunday, AFAR and The National, among other publications. She is a co-founder of interdisciplinary arts collective, Nomadique, and regularly collaborates with audiovisual production company, Mason Jar Music. In 2017, she was named one of PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch.
