This season, Taksim Sanat hosts an elegant selection that touches the memory of Istanbul’s performing arts. Curated from photojournalist Ali Öz’s archive spanning 25 years, “The Dance of Photography, the Photography of Dance” brings together the ephemerality of dance with the permanence of photography. Composed of frames that bear witness to Istanbul’s ballet and contemporary dance scene, the exhibition captures the fleeting moment when movement meets light while simultaneously making the city’s cultural rhythm visible.
Catching the Silent Rhythm Inside Movement
In Ali Öz’s photographs, dance is not merely a performance; it is the body’s momentary negotiation with space, an aesthetic tremor revealed the instant rhythm touches a surface. Sometimes on the tiptoes of a rising ballerina, sometimes in the curve drawn by a shadow in the dimness of the stage… The images convey dance’s most fragile moments without weighing them down, carrying their lightness intact.
The selection of around 60 photographs covers a wide spectrum: from the Moscow Classical State Ballet to Béjart Ballet Lausanne, from the Bolshoi to the National Ballet of China, from Istanbul State Opera and Ballet to the works of Beyhan Murphy. Performances that left their mark on the city feel as though they have returned years later beneath the same stage lights, creating a renewed sense of liveliness in the viewer.
Istanbul’s Dance Memory
Behind the exhibition lies a city story. Istanbul’s stages have borne witness, from the 1990s to the present, both to the transformation of local productions and to the dialogue that international companies have established with the city. Ali Öz’s archive is one of the quiet yet powerful records of this transformation.
Against the flowing nature of dance, every moment fixed by photography leaves a small sign, a trace, in Istanbul’s cultural memory.
A Photographer’s Long View
A photographic journey that began in 1979 with limited equipment has over time turned into a vast visual memory stretching from social events to the performing arts. In Öz’s dance photographs, one can see both the distance and the sensitivity of this accumulated experience: while approaching the fragility of movement, his documentary eye never overshadows the theatrical allure of the stage. Each photograph carries not only the outward appearance of a performance but also its rhythm, its breath, its anticipation.
Exhibition Details
The Dance of Photography, the Photography of Dance
Venue: Taksim Sanat
Dates: 12 November – 21 December 2025
Admission: Free
A graceful stop for anyone interested in the lightness of dance, the memory of photography, and Istanbul’s stage culture.
