July 15, 2011 — In honor of the upcoming residency of renowned choreographer Bill T. Jones in November, the University of Virginia Art Museum will present an exhibition of images of dance, drawn from its own and private collections.

"The Dancer and the Dance: Prints, Drawings and Photographs" opens July 29 and runs through Dec. 23.

"Dance may be the most ancient art form, because it turns the human body into a work of art," museum director Bruce Boucher said. "Photography captures the most ephemeral and detailed of dance gestures, and artists have shown that the static and kinetic are ultimately one. Great art allows us to be aware of this fact, whether in classical dance or in the visual records of photographers, printmakers, sculptors and draftsmen."

The artists represented in this exhibition, ranging through many centuries up to the present, include Giovanni Podesta, Jan Sadeler, Paul Gavarni, Edgar Degas, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Käthe Kollwitz, Man Ray, Reginald Marsh, Barbara Morgan, Garry Winogrand and Dove Bradshaw.

Together, these prints, drawings, photographs and sculpture reflect the perennial fascination of artists in conveying bodily movement as a manifestation of the spirit, Boucher said. The exhibition's title comes from the last line of William Butler Yeats' poem "Among School Children": "O body swayed to music, O brightening glance / How can we know the dancer from the dance?" 

This exhibition is made possible through the support of Albemarle Magazine, Arts$, B. Herbert Lee '48 Endowed Fund, The Hook, Ivy Publications LLC's Charlottesville Welcome Book and the U.Va. Art Museum Volunteer Board.