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Issue date: 10/1/06 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: Tiffany Dixon International acclaimed dance photographer, Lois Greenfield, demonstrates her creative process of capturing breathless images in the Goddard Theater.

Whether it concerns matters of communication, recreation, travel, safety, or even
entertainment, we all use technology in our everyday lives.
Since the science of practical technology is so easily accessible and certainly useful, some people have developed a dependency. When it comes to modern artwork, however, the artist now also relies on computer regeneration for creativity. There seems to be a very thin line between what is pure human imagination and what a computer ìthinksî imagination is.
Where art is concerned, there is one photographer who uses her own mental pictures to represent extremely unique expressions. Lois Greenfield, whose work is now on display at the Southeast Museum of Photography, uses elements of the human body and energy to allow the imagination to run wild.
Lois Greenfield captures ambiguous forms of the human body with ballet dancers, tap dancers, acrobats, break-dancers, and contortionists as her subjects. She uses no manipulation or aid of digital technology. Greenfield seizes the moments when impossible configurations of energy and matter connect with disorder. Most of the photos can never be repeated. They are not taken in an ordinary fashion pose
The still images exist in 500th of a second only.
Tension between energy and confinement has always intrigued Greenfield. This fascination combined with the idea of the human body in motion allows the artist and the viewer, to think beyond the limits of the preconceived. Her expressive work makes the viewer question the laws of gravity, motion, and time.
While observing Greenfield's photographs of dancers in midair or twisted in inconceivable shapes, the rhythmic movement of the still image appears to be in perpetual motion. It is hard to believe Greenfield only uses electric strobes to catch a something lasting only 1/2000th of a second. There are no digital tricks up her sleeve.
Lois Greenfield thinks smarter, not harder. Her raw creativity and pure knowledge are represented beautifully in her breathtaking portraits. She is a magnificent example of independent thinking and creativity. Instead of upgrading technology, Lois Greenfield is upgrading imagination.
"Lightness of Being" opened Sept. 16 and runs through Dec. 10 at the SMP, Building 100. Collaborating with some of the world's finest dancers from such illustrious dance companies as the Martha Graham Dance Company, Merce Cunningham, the Sydney Dance Company, Paul Taylor, Pilobolus, San Francisco Ballet, the Parsons Dance Company, and Ballet Tech, Greenfield captures moments of startling grace and power. Her gravity-defying bodyscapes mark a new direction in dance photography.
On Oct. 18, there will be meet-and-greet open house with author and dance historian Martha Ullman West at 6 p.m. Ullman West will speak at 7 p.m. Bldg 110, rm 112, Daytona.

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