Ella Rose: the story: June 2011

Wednesday, 29 June 2011

Queen Vashti (AKA 'Why wear normal clothes when you can wear Aladdin trousers?')

The link to this video was sent to me a couple of days ago. It's a recording of a dance performance I took part in a few weeks ago at a theatre in Oxford. My improvised solo is last, but watch it all the way through! Sadly, the quality doesn't allow for some of the more intricate movements (smaller shimmies layered over other movements, etc) to be particularly visible, but you get the general gist of the prancing.

The track is called 'Vashti' and is a bit of a feminist feast - Queen Vashti features in the book of Esther in the Bible and is most noted for her refusal to appear at the King's banquet (other interpretations say she refused to dance for the drunken king's entertainment there), choosing instead to host her own party for the women on the same day. She was subsequently banished, and lost her status as queen (she was succeeded by Esther, who was presumably more obedient).

What are 56 photos between friends?

Welcome to another bumper crop edition of photographs taken in Spain by John Evans and Gregory Brown! What a brilliant, productive week it was! You can read more about this trip (and see many more photos in many, many different settings here on my blog) here, here, here, here and here. This is the final batch.

Where there's a second model in the shots, it's Hannah Ashlea (I had another fantastic shoot with Hannah and different photographer recently - some exciting stuff to come soon!).

As always, I'll alternate between the two photographers' work below, while trying to create a semblance of coherence and connection between the different sets and across locations...

By John Evans:

By Gregory Brown:

By John Evans:

By Gregory Brown:

By John Evans:

By Gregory Brown:

By John Evans:

By Gregory Brown:

:-) Outtakes to come at some point, I reckon...

P.S. The book Gregory and John made from this trip, 'Andelusianudes' is available for purchase here.

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About Me

(For full information, including interviews and publications, see my website.)

Based in Oxfordshire/London, UK (and travelling anywhere and everywhere; click on the 'travel plans' tab near the top!), I'm a dance-trained model and writer. I began modelling for a painter while completing my Masters degree and accidentally carried on. Whether traditional or experimental, from artistic nudes to fashion shots, I strive to work with artists and photographers to help create images which are memorable, beautiful, intriguing or celebratory of the female form.

I am primarily an 'art model', taking bookings directly and independently, but am also represented by commercial agencies. I enjoy versatility and take on work across the spectrum: dance/movement, lingerie, fitness, commercial, lifestyle, wedding, fashion, beauty and portraits.

I've been lucky enough to have worked with some world-renowned photographers and artists, in many different countries and locations, yet some of my favourite images were taken by enthusiastic beginners. I am available for work with photographers, painters and artists of various media, whether amateur hobbiests or experienced industry professionals, for exhibitions, commercial publication or just portfolio building. (I'm never interested in anything remotely 'adult' or degrading.) If you'd like to consider hiring me for your project, please email me at: ellarosemuse@live.co.uk.

My life-long love of dance (I have trained in various/most styles from the age of 3) allows me to use my body awareness to add creativity, expressive lines, grace, character and emotion to images I'm involved with.

This blog is a little diary of my adventures and a fun way for me to share my latest images week by week (and help myself keep track of what I get up to!). Thanks for dropping by! Don't forget to say hi in the comments area, or by email (ellarosemuse@live.co.uk)... Often I struggle to decide which images out of a collection are my favourites; feel free to let me know yours!

Walter De La Mare, 'The Listeners'

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses

Of the forest’s ferny floor:

And a bird flew up out of the turret,

Above the Traveller’s head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;

‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;

No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,

Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners

That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight

To that voice from the world of men:

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,

That goes down to the empty hall,

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken

By the lonely Traveller’s call.

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,

Their stillness answering his cry,

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,

’Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even

Louder, and lifted his head:—

‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,

That I kept my word,’ he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,

Though every word he spake

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,

And the sound of iron on stone,

And how the silence surged softly backward,

When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Natasha Khan/Bat for Lashes, 'Horse and I'

Got woken in the night,
by a mystic golden light.
My head soaked in river water.
I had been dressed in a coat of armor. They called
a horse out of the woodland.
"Take her there, through the desert shores."
They sang to me, "This is yours to wear.
You're the chosen one, there's no turning back now."

The smell of redwood giants.
The banquet for the shadows.
Horse and I, we're dancers in the dark.
Came upon the headdress.
It was gilded, dark and golden.
The children sang.
I was so afraid I took it to my head and prayed.
They sang to me, "This is yours to wear. You're the chosen one, there's no turning back."
They sang to me, "This is yours to wear. You're the chosen one, there's no turning back."

Mark Doty, 'A Display of Mackerel'

They lie in parallel rows,

on ice, head to tail,

each a foot of luminosity

barred with black bands,

which divide the scales’

radiant sections

like seams of lead

in a Tiffany window.

Iridescent, watery

prismatics: think abalone,

the wildly rainbowed

mirror of a soapbubble sphere,

think sun on gasoline.

Splendor, and splendor,

and not a one in any way

distinguished from the other

—nothing about them

of individuality. Instead

they’re all exact expressions

of the one soul,

each a perfect fulfilment

of heaven’s template,

mackerel essence. As if,

after a lifetime arriving

at this enameling, the jeweler’s

made uncountable examples,

each as intricate

in its oily fabulation

as the one before

Suppose we could iridesce,

like these, and lose ourselves

entirely in the universe

of shimmer—would you want

to be yourself only,

unduplicatable, doomed

to be lost? They’d prefer,

plainly, to be flashing participants,

multitudinous. Even now

they seem to be bolting

forward, heedless of stasis.

They don’t care they’re dead

and nearly frozen,

just as, presumably,

they didn’t care that they were living:

all, all for all,

the rainbowed school

and its acres of brilliant classrooms,

in which no verb is singular,

or every one is. How happy they seem,

even on ice, to be together, selfless,

which is the price of gleaming.

Kate Clanchy, 'Poem for a Man with No Sense of Smell'

This is simply to inform you:

that the thickest line in the kink of my hand
smells like the feel of an old school desk,
the deep carved names worn sleek with sweat;

that beneath the spray of my expensive scent
my armpits sound a bass note strong
as the boom of a palm on a kettle drum;

that the wet flush of my fear is sharp
as the taste of an iron pipe, midwinter,
on a child's hot tongue; and that sometimes,

in a breeze, the delicate hairs on the nape
of my neck, just where you might bend
your head, might hesitate and brush your lips,

hold a scent frail and precise as a fleet
of tiny origami ships, just setting out to sea.

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Wednesday, 29 June 2011

Queen Vashti (AKA 'Why wear normal clothes when you can wear Aladdin trousers?')

What are 56 photos between friends?