


Whether it’s some sort of narrative or plotless piece, one can find a way to relate or be moved, transported, transformed. To me, dance is a constant reminder of the beauty of the human condition.

The dance world, as I know it, is a space where the “outside world” is just that: a departure from the everyday, pedestrian way of experiencing ourselves. TW: It’s not my place to define the dance world, but that is how I think about it and that’s how it makes me feel. To keep photographing her would be a gift for both of us.ĮA: Can you expand on the idea of the dance world being a place of role-play and rebirth? Bearing witness to a life just beginning, brimming with possibility, it was all I could do not to mourn my own childhood. I remember feeling half-vindicated for my patience and half-devastated at the realization that it would all be over so fast. I literally cried these very weepy sad, happy tears. Instead, I set things up to recreate the moment as closely as possible, maybe mostly in defiance that I could do a better job than was expected of me, both creatively and as a parent. Motivated by a lack of family photos of my own childhood, at first I had mixed feelings about shoving a camera in a baby’s face all the time but in my mind it was imperative to record these moments as proof I wasn’t a fuck up.Īs I fumbled around with the used Pentax I’d bought at a camera repair shop for 35 bucks, I became increasingly frustrated at missing the “candid moments” I’d romantically imagined being easy to get. She was about 4 months old, was trying to sit up on her own, and like many new parents, I had resolved to document the milestones for posterity.
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It was 1995, we lived in Seattle, Washington, and I had no idea how to use a camera. When the pandemic shuttered the art and dance worlds, Wills turned to a sole subject: her daughter, Lily, who is a ballerina experiencing the effects of the pandemic and was even diagnosed with COVID-19 and had to quarantine in Wills’s studio. Their lifelong creative collaboration offers an intimate portrait into their artistic relationship and how Wills frequently turns to photography to convey how her own artistic career often veers between personal and public.Įmerald Arguelles: Do you recall the first image you took of your daughter? Can you describe the emotion? Her portraiture explores the dynamics of identity, power, and vulnerability expressed in the body in both performative and private contexts.
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Wills-who’s photographed the likes of Mister Cartoon, Shepard Fairey, and others-currently focuses on professional dancers and choreographers (from institutions like the Bolshoi and New York City Ballet, or choreographers Lucinda Childs and Kyle Abraham). Tatiana Wills is an LA-based artist and photographer, whose practice focuses on documenting creatives, rule-breakers, professional dancers, and her own daughter.
