Imagining Cutumba

As with La Lucha, the photographs and filmwork that became Imagining Cutumba are not, however, documentary in their conception, not about locating the dance company or its work in historical consciousness. And even more than with La Lucha, the departure from historical consciousness is registered as a departure from the idiom of photographic realism, in favor of a full-throttle embrace of visual experiment to a degree Salzmann had not previously attempted. Salzmann’s experiments begin from an acceptance of the dimness and low available light of the company’s rehearsal studio, which begat long exposures, camera movement during long exposures to complement the movements of the dancers, optical blur to complement the motion blur, under- and over-exposure in unpredictable juxtapositions, sometimes double and multiple-exposure of the same piece of film, and sometimes even digital layering techniques with the scanned negatives. Most of the work is in black and white or digitally toned monochrome, though the archive does reveal some work in color.