Dance of the Weave — Briana Blasko

The photographs you see in this book are the result of an extensive journey that the artist undertook across the length and breadth of India over a period of five years. She visited dance schools and festivals -- from the Uttar Kamalabari Satra monastery on the Majuli river-island in the Brahmaputra river in Assam, which teaches Sattriya dance, to the C.V.N. Kalari gurukulam in Calicut, which instructs students in the martial art of Kalaripayattu -- to research classical, folk and tribal dances. She also visited weaving villages, documenting the dancers' costumes and textiles, and how a dancer inhabits textiles and plays with fabric through movement. By highlighting the drapes that are used in dance, Briana shows us how even a single piece of cloth that is used is still relevant in India. Her photographs celebrate textiles as well as the aesthetic of those who wear them.