The dance form that I chose is adagio, which is a partner hand balancing act that uses complicated and challenging partner stunts as a large portion of the vocabulary communicated in a dance piece. The aesthetic of this dance style is similar to contemporary with a lot of ballet technique, and it incorporates challenging and visually stunning partner stunts. I think it is a good fit for this music because of the partner aspect, and the very tenuous nature of the style. A lot of the focus is on delicately performed stunts that involve a lot of skill and balance, and are often chosen for their apparent visual appearance as physically unbalanced even though they are solidly stable. This very much speaks to both the lyrical content and overall feel of the music.

My actual outcome will be a series of about 5 photographs from various points in the choreography, captured using the techniques of Duane Michals. His use of light is very powerful and serves to pull away from the individual identities and instead draw focus to the ideas his subjects represent or portray. This is something that I think could be very powerful here, and contributes to the very ephemeral feel of the music. He also uses a lot of different techniques involving long exposures, which I played with in a previous assignment, that I think could add a lot to the piece in terms of maintaining the feeling of movement through the static images and also furthering the very ephemeral feel.

To compose these images, my mind immediately led me to a studio space that was once a warehouse but has since been converted. It has dark, old, brick walls on the interior and dark laminate flooring, and the back wall has huge cutouts filled with tempered glass. In the early hours of the morning, the light shines through the tempered glass as makes anything in the studio light up from behind, showing everything in silhouette. This setting is appropriate for a few reasons. The effect over all is to light up the dancers in an almost ethereal way, while still showing them as being in the darker world of the studio with the dark brick and the lights out. It also evokes a sort of living stained glass look, which I think ties in well with the song's use of church items in a non typical way and adds to the overall effect.

To increase the effect of silhouette, I will have the dancers wear black. Other than that, I intend to communicate the general aesthetic and then play the music and allow for a fair amount of improvisation while capturing a mix of long and short exposure shots. From there, I will choose a series of 5 images that best show the musical progression and tell a story similar to that of the music. 

As a backup, because this is a somewhat ambitious proposal, I could do a similar thing but with solo shots. This would keep a lot of the same elements, but also shift the focus a little more to the pleading of the female vocalist as opposed to the delicate balance between two strong personalities. IT would still be a viable option, though, in case I can't pull off the bigger idea.

Here is an example of the look of adagio, and the silhouette feel. I don't like the technique used here, but the style of pose is fairly representational.