Victoria Ugarte, Surrender to the Dance (SINGLE SHOT 2022)

Having danced classical ballet as a child, I’ve been fascinated by the human body in motion. Of late, no one has piqued my interest more than 19 year old Hannah Leong, who I met at the Spiral Motion Studio, in Woolloomooloo. A graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Sydney’s Alegria Dance Studios, Hannah had just learned on the morning that we met that she’d landed a much coveted role in Opera Australia’s ‘Turandot’, starting in January ’22. As luck would have it, I had a feather-light chiffon kimono in my backpack that was a perfect colour match with Hannah’s active wear. I asked her to put it on, let her hair down, and just “play”. And play she did. What happened next was infinitely more than a perfect coordination between legs, feet, torso, arms, hands, neck and head. In surrendering to the dance, Hannah infused her movements with emotion and magic.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.