Andrea Paolini Merlo
Zsófia Gyarmati
Photography

Ballet News 2011 Photographic Competition: Winner

Andrea Paolini Merlo won the 2011 Ballet News Photographic Competition.

Ballet News

 

IPA 2011: 1st Place

Andrea Paolini Merlo was Awarded 1st Place in the IPA 2011 Competition.

ipa ~ int'l photography awards ~

 

2011 International Photography Awards Announces Winners of the Competition

Andrea Paolini Merlo was Awarded: 1st place in Special - Moving Images category for the winning entry "InMotion"

About IPA: The International Photography Awards is a sister-effort of the Lucie Foundation, where the top three winners are announced at the annual Lucie Awards ceremony. The awards event will be held at the Lincoln Center in New York on October 24, 2011, before returning to Los Angeles in 2012 in celebration of the 10-year anniversary. Over 8,000 submissions from 90 countries were received for the 2011 International Photography Awards with over 70 jurors, the largest to date. The Foundation's mission is to honor master photographers, discover new and emerging talent, and promote the appreciation of photography. IPA is dedicated to recognizing contemporary photographers' accomplishments in this specialized and highly visible competition. Visit www.photoawards.com for more details.

PX3 2011: Bronze Award

Andrea Paolini Merlo was Awarded Bronze in the PX3 2011 Competition.

PX3 PRIX DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE PARIS

 

PARIS, FRANCE
PRIX DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE PARIS (PX3) ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF PX3 2011 COMPETITION.

Andrea Paolini Merlo of Italy was Awarded:

Bronze in category Non-Professional Press for the entry entitled "InMotion".

The jury selected PX3 2011's winners from thousands of photography entries from over 85 countries.

Px3 is juried by top international decision-makers in the photography industry:

Alice Gabriner, World Picture Editor of Time Magazine, New York
Anna Zekria, Agency.Photographer.ru, Moscow
Arnaud Adida, Director of Acte 2 Gallery/Agency, Paris
Carol Johnson, Curator of Photography of Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
Chiara Mariani, Photo Editor of Corriere della Sera Magazine, Italy
Christophe Loviny, Independent Curator, Paris
Christine Ollier, Art Director of Filles du Calvaire, Paris
Daphne Angles Photo Editor NY Times, Paris
Daria Bonera Director, Daria Bonera Agency, Milan
Françoise Paviot, Director of Galerie Françoise Paviot, Paris
Janette Danel, Independent Curator, Paris
Bernard Utudjian, Director of Galerie Polaris, Paris
Jesper Thomsen,    Director Mews42 Gallery, London
Jerome Huffer, Photo Editor Paris Match, Paris
Kenan Aktulun, VP/Creative Director of Digitas, New York
Mark Heflin, Director of American Illustration + American Photography, New York
Mike Bower, Managing Editor Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney
Miriam Leuchter, Editor Popular Photography, New York
Nan Oshin, Photo Editor Clark Oshin Gallery, Los Angeles
Natalie Belayche, Director of Visual Delight, Paris
Natalie Johnson, Features Editor of Digital Photographer Magazine, London
Patrice Farameh, Publisher MAET Media, New York
Patrick Kahn, Director SNAP! photo festival, Orlando
Rebecca McClelland, Photography Director NewStatesman magazine, London
Sara Rumens, Lifestyle Photo Editor of Grazia Magazine, London
Susan Aurinko, Independent Curator, Chicago
Susan Baraz, Curator, Co-chair Lucie Awards, New York
Sherrie Berger, Director Scarlet works Creative Change Agency
Viviene Esders, Expert près la Cour d'Appel de Paris

Photo Exhibition at the National Dance Theater of Budapest

Andrea Paolini Merlo’s photographs of Balanchine’s ballet "Serenade"
® The George Balanchine Trust

National Dance Theater - Budapest

 

 

PHOTO EXHIBITION in the Red Salon of the Hungarian State Opera House

Andrea Paolini Merlo’s photographs of Balanchine’s ballet Serenade
from 12 January 2011 to 6 February 2011

® The George Balanchine Trust

 

Serenade

Serenade was Balanchine’s first work in the United States and the first real symphonic ballet. It is hard to believe the première was an examination performance at the School of American Ballet. Balanchine used Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for String Orchestra for the ballet. The spectacle is simple: in bluish light, the girls are wearing long water-colour skirts which look more like training clothes than real costumes. The first Serenade is about the ballet school and the dancing students, who had just spent half a year in the newly opened school. They were not used to dancing on stage, and their knowledge of ballet was varied. The first performance was held in 1934, and the second one, already performed by artists, in 1935. Today Serenade is an ever-glowing diamond in Balanchine’s oeuvre, and ballet companies which have some self-esteem include Serenade in their repertoire.   

The opening scene is already poetic: women are looking in the distance as if they were saying farewell. Seventeen girls: Balanchine had exactly this number of students for the performance. Other choreographers would probably have simply left someone out so as to get an even number of dancers. Balanchine, however, did not care: he arranged his dancers in diagonals of various numbers of persons. The dancers form different geometrical forms, the corps de ballet breaks up into smaller parts and then reunites only to let other groups break from it again. A female dancer joins the others at the end of the first movement as if she had been late. This is based on a real event, but Balanchine built it into the ballet in a way that today’s spectators cannot imagine that it could have been composed differently.    

The first male soloist appears in the waltz of the second movement, but the ballet is still about the female dancers, the ballerinas. One of the most beautiful moments of the third, so-called Russian movement – originally the fourth movement of the Serenade for String Orchestra – is the scene of the five female dancers who are playing with space like a string of beads.

The last movement is dominated by darker tones. A couple walks through the stage with the woman embracing the man, thus hiding the world from him. They approach the front of the stage this way where they reach another woman who is lying on the ground. This scene and the moving arms of the dancer at the back justifies that she can be interpreted as the angel of destiny, and the way the dancers slowly leave the stage in the closing scene and the stage gradually darkens also makes us think of death.    

Balanchine’s Serenade is miraculous even after 80 years: the impressive spectacle, which interprets Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings poetically using the language of dance. The geometrical forms are composed perfectly, and the whole ballet is full of brilliant ideas, and still it is simplicity and sophisticated grace. Balanchine was often asked to tell what his ballet was about, but he rejected all assumptions. In his interpretation it was simply about women dancing in the moonlight  

George Balanchine (1904-1983)

He was undeniably one of the greatest figures of 20^th century dance. Being of Georgian descent, he studied at the St. Petersburg ballet school, but was unable to decide whether to become a musician or a dancer for a long time. His talent in choreography became evident before his graduation, but it began to blossom when he was working with the Russian Ballet in Western Europe (1924–1929). Commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev, he established contacts with a number of outstanding composers (Stravinsky, Prokofiev) and artists (Derain, Utrillo). Compositions in this first period include Apollon Musagètes and The Prodigal Son.    

1933 brought a major change in his life when he accepted American arts patron Lincoln Kirsten’s offer to move to the United States. Moving there meant that he had his own school, and, not much later, his own company where he could put all his ideas into practice without making concessions. In the beginning audiences in the New World were not very enthusiastic about his pieces without stories, but the situation of his ballet became so firm after World War II that his company, which was known as the New York City Ballet from 1948, soon became the leading ballet company in this vast country. Balanchine remained the leader of his company until his death, and today he is regarded as the founder of American ballet and an epoch-making genius.

Balanchine’s company employed a number of well-trained dancers who had graduated from his school, and they achieved great successes with their master’s so-called symphonic ballets. Balanchine’s oeuvre contains more than three hundred of such pieces in which the emphasis is on the relationship of music and dance, as they were composed to symphonic music with the aim to interpret either the structure or the mood of the music, or sometimes both. In all cases the choreographer uses the structure of the music as a base, for example the competition and construction of instrument groups or solo instruments. Thus, the symphonic ballet transforms the music which can be heard from the pit to dance. All the ballets of this genre lack plots, and sets and spectacular costumes are often omitted too. The reason behind this is that the spectacle of the piece should not divert the attention from the organic unity of music and dance. As regards style, Balanchine’s pieces are neo-Classical, because after the inventive, often acrobatic and sometimes even grotesque movements of his early years, the choreographer returned to the 19^th century elements of Classical ballet, but he used these in an aesthetic way and not in compliance with the Classical canon.

    All the photos on display are for sale. The funds raised by the sale of photographs will be transferred to the account of the Hungarian National Ballet Foundation. The Foundation will use the funds to support young dance talents and premières of new productions.

PX3 2010: Honorable Mention

Andrea Paolini Merlo was Awarded in the PX3 2010 Competition.

PX3 PRIX DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE PARIS

 

PARIS, FRANCE
PRIX DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE PARIS (PX3) ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF PX3 2010 COMPETITION.

Andrea Paolini Merlo was Awarded:

Honorable Mention in category Non-Professional Photojournalism/Performing Arts for the entry entitled "Shades".

The jury selected PX3 2011's winners from thousands of photography entries from over 85 countries.

Px3 is juried by top international decision-makers in the photography industry: Carol Johnson, Curator of Photography of Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; Gilles Raynaldy, Director of Purpose, Paris; Viviene Esders, Expert près la Cour d'Appel de Paris; Mark Heflin, Director of American Illustration + American Photography, New York; Sara Rumens, Lifestyle Photo Editor of Grazia Magazine, London; Françoise Paviot, Director of Galerie Françoise Paviot, Paris; Chrisitine Ollier, Art Director of Filles du Calvaire, Paris; Natalie Johnson, Features Editor of Digital Photographer Magazine, London; Natalie Belayche, Director of Visual Delight, Paris; Kenan Aktulun, VP/Creative Director of Digitas, New York; Chiara Mariani, Photo Editor of Corriere della Sera Magazine, Italy; Arnaud Adida, Director of Acte 2 Gallery/Agency, Paris; Jeannette Mariani, Director of 13 Sévigné Gallery, Paris; Bernard Utudjian, Director of Galerie Polaris, Paris; Agnès Voltz, Director of Chambre Avec Vues, Paris; and Alice Gabriner, World Picture Editor of Time Magazine, New York.