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Her Highness Sayyida Susan Al Said presents Claude Le-Anh with a gift. Claude Le Anh, 77, spent 35 years working as a photographer in the performing arts, shooting theatre, opera and dance. Photo –Times of Oman
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Muscat: For the past 10 years, Vietnamese-French photographer Claude Le-Anh has been living a life of solitude and silence as a monk in Provence, but for one rare occasion, she decided to leave her quiet life behind and come to Muscat for an exhibition of her work at Bait Muzna Gallery.
Claude Le Anh, 77, spent 35 years working as a photographer in the performing arts, shooting theatre, opera and dance. But a decade ago she put down her cameras, annoyed by the changes digital cameras had brought to the field, and became a Vedic monk.
"Now I meditate. I live in solitude. I became a hermit, a Vedic monk. I live another life now, without photography. Now I don't take photos. I find that everyone takes pictures now with their digital cameras, and it's not photography anymore, so I'm not interested anymore," she explained.
While Claude Le-Anh may no longer practise photography, she was more than happy to reflect on her work, breaking her silence to speak with journalists, students and anyone else interested in her photography.
"I liked photographing performing arts because they were lively. Theatre had text and colour. Dance had music and movements. Opera had song. I worked with the big sopranos and tenors," she said.
While she amassed thousands of photographs during her career, those on display at Bait Muzna as part of the Muscat Art Festival are of one sole subject, the American dancer Carolyn Carlson. Claude Le-Anh spent 30 years documenting Carlson's European career on film.
Her photographs capture precise moments from Carlson's choreography, but also focus on the dancer as a model in various scenarios, from sitting contemplatively by a window, to walking through a forest.
Almost all are shot in black and white, and developed in a dark room by the photographer herself. The collection brings together many sides of Carlson — strong, elegant, dynamic, vulnerable and creative.
"When she appeared it was like magic. When she danced it was like magic. That was Carolyn," she recalled fondly.
But Claude Le-Anh said she didn't find it much like work when she was shooting Carolyn because she really liked the way the dancer moved and her choreography, so it was more of a pleasure.
Carlson's dancing
"Carolyn is the sea. She is movement, she is the waves, coming and going. In her dance you really feel the movement of the sea," Claude Le-Anh said, describing Carlson's dancing.
While the photographs and the fact that the two women worked together for three decades suggest a strong friendship or intimacy between them, Claude Le-Anh said they were simply working together, nothing more.
"I really like Carolyn's work, that's true. But we didn't talk when we worked, and after we finished we still didn't talk. But we understood each other. There was a connection through the air," Claude Le-Anh said.
To see Claude Le-Anh's photographs, visit Bait Muzna in the Opera Galleria, where they will be on display until February 28.
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