Yana Toyber Explores Where Photography, Femininity, and Ballet Meet
Publication | Juxtapoz Magazine
Regarded by some, as arguably one of the last remaining, beautifully conservative art forms, the ballet. With all of its trappings that surround a fruitful relationship between the emotion expressed through movement and its players, the mere conduits for this expression. They grace the stage with poised plie and saute. Examples of the commanding positions of elegant rigor, that are as demanding of contemplative admiration, as any physical artwork elevated to artistic prominence.––William Lankford
Undoubtedly, each character portrayed, in essence, is the player who compels upon the role of a prominently commanding piece of art. These immediate burdens, demands, and sacrifices upon, “the ballerina” are in no wise less, because of its poised nature in movement and motion, but something which requires a type of austere dedication and focus. This sentiment moves in true concert, when considering a former ballerina who has for some years, transferred this mindset and discipline from practice room and stage, to stand and yes, sometimes still on her toes, behind the camera cropping a moment, or rather “the moment” to her zest.
New York photographer Yana Toyber’s female-centric and socially controversial images vex the constructs of femininity and continue to break through barriers via diverse forms of symbolism, in bondage and the elements of materialistic confines, obvious and implied, that society, even still, holds to anti-feminism.