Frankie Perez & # 39; picture ebook is a uncooked ode to avenue dance tradition
"I see it as a visual love letter," says photographer and filmmaker Frankie Perez of his new self-published book. “I wanted to create a work that focused on the street dance culture that I grew up in. As far as I know, there has never been a photo book devoted exclusively to this subject, especially one that emphasized breaking strongly. "
Do you see me up? "Because I've been down" is the manifestation of Perez's desire to paint a more holistic portrait of the contemporary street dance scene from an insider's perspective. "I wanted to be in one place to explore some of the nuances that make up parts of culture that I believed could sometimes be overlooked," he explains, from street hitting to ciphers where dancers perform in the middle a circle of people. As the book captures the kinetic energy of dance and movement, it also takes a look at the quieter moments, from just hanging out to balancing high-profile dancer and parenting.
The photos were taken from 2018 to 2020, with the majority taken while Perez lived between New York City and Montreal, along with pictures from Florida, Mexico City, Boston, and Texas. The book includes images of friends, members of his own Supreme Beingz crew, and people from the scene with whom he crossed on his travels.
All pictures from See Me Up? It's because I got knocked down by Frankie Perez
The book is self published and offered a learning curve as he hadn't designed or sequenced a photo book before. Meanwhile, the pandemic forced Perez to adjust casting and logistics to film some of the work himself.
Perez has directed and directed for clients such as Vans, Converse and Depop and believes the discipline and curiosity that brought him there as a dancer helped shape his image-making practice by being in a variety of ways his creative practice has collapsed. This includes a sense of movement that can be felt throughout his work, even if he is not photographing a dancer.
Wanting to get more attention as it was announced it would be introduced at the Paris Olympics in 2024, Perez wanted to create a work that would be both artistically and accurately introduced to the scene. "There is a lot of emphasis in the general media on explosiveness and flashy movements," he says, "although the style of certain movements does not get as much attention."
Perez believes that the bulk of photography in the street dance scene tends to rely on competitions and battles to promote specific events. Outside of the scene there are few street dance images of any kind, and the ones he finds frequently are superficial. He feels that breaking and street dancing are sometimes mentioned in commercial pictures that show people who are not breakers (known as b-boys and b-girls) as either poor technique or a stereotypical representation ”.
"From a filmmaking standpoint, I think there are a lot of good stories told in the documentary room," he says. "From a narrative point of view, however, I don't believe that there is a modern representation that is artistically satisfying for me and that is really true to the essence of our actions." While some of these films have cast respected dancers, the stories haven't been well executed. It is a void that I will hopefully fill with a film that I am currently writing that will, in many ways, build on what my book is about. "
In practice there is a lot going on when B-Boys and B-Girls "throw down" and although it can be tempting to catch it all, Perez's own training as a dancer helps him know what to look for, he explains. "Sometimes I already know what I want to record while I'm feeding on what the subject already gives me, and sometimes I don't even look through the viewfinder to surprise myself with experiments." I feel at home when I'm shooting in the scene, whether I'm trying to creatively document something that's happening or create a fashion picture or portrait. Most of the time, I will most likely photograph someone I know, which leads to good chemistry. "
The opportunity to document street dance brings a feeling of novelty to an art form that is otherwise very familiar to him: “From a creative point of view, it's really fun because I can take something that I am into my own hands. “I've been around for so long. "He hopes the book will show its own visual language while also showing the career opportunities for dancers in the commercial photography and film industries:" I'm much bigger than my background in dance, but I've chosen this as the starting point for my vision of the future will be. "
Do you see me up? That's because I was down. pompmedia.com; @pluralist_