"Passio" is a Latin term commonly used to refer to passion and intense love but originally to designate suffering. As French photographer Marine du Sordet progressed on her project dedicated to dancers, it became clear to her that most of them, though driven by an unconditional love of their art, did not hide the part of suffering - both physical and psychological - inherent to its practice.
Her work intends to reveal this duality between appearance and reality.
“Last September, I woke up in the middle of the night with dancers in my heart. From that moment on, it was impossible to chase them away. They were with me day and night no matter what I did! As someone who has never taken a ballet class and knows nothing about ballet, I become obsessed with the idea of taking pictures of ballerinas. Then the complicated part began: finding young women who would accept that I take pictures of them in not always ideal weather conditions. Most of the photos were taken during the winter of 2019, some in spring. All in Zurich. As the project progressed, I realized that many photographers had already covered the subject: their dancers are beautiful, graceful, perfect! While discussing with my models, paradoxically, I was struck by some of the themes raised. Certainly, for some, dancing gives them an intense feeling of joy and freedom, they even speak of an outlet. But for others, it is about self-denial, extreme demands, humiliation, misogyny, physical and mental suffering... I was also told about the difficult choice between dancing and giving life, eating properly and anorexia. It is all these darker aspects that have both upset and moved me to the point of deciding to focus my work more in this direction.”
PASSIO
Marine du Sordet
Exhibition at ZeoT Zürich from September 28 to December 21, 2019