ATSA Performance/Choreography & Danced by Sylvain Poirier. Photograph by Sonya Stefan.

Today we feature photographs from the portfolio of artist Sonya Stefan. The photographs that I have selected to share with you show various dancers who were photographed by Sonya between 2004 and 2011. These photographs capture dance perfectly as they "freeze" a heartbeat moment of a movement that defies gravity. These moments seem to capture a spirit of elegant elation while reminding us that the subject is in a rapid transition from one movement to the next. For example, clothes that seem to pull up the moment before a jump becomes a descent and hair that swings out behind a dancer moving laterally across a stage.

"Her interest in creating cinédanse is inspired from her professional dance career which began in 1996, training and performing with Toronto Dance Theatre and Dance Theatre David Earle. Since migrating to Montreal in 1999, she has taken the opportunity to work with several dance artists and companies including Estelle Clareton, Dana Gingras, Peter Trosztmer, Mariko Tanabe, Fondation Jean Pierre Perreault, Cas Public and Montreal Danse. Sonya has developed her pedagogical and interpretive dance skills through rehearsal directing for Jean-Pierre Perreault's, JOE, choreographing for Repercussion Theatre's Shakespeare in the Parks and a decade of training dancers at Ballet Divertimento pre-professional training program." - www.sonyastefan.com

View more examples from the art portfolio of Sonya Stefan here: www.sonyastefan.com

Montreal Danse/Desire#2/Manon Levac. Photograph by Sonya Stefan.

Elena Kargin. Photograph by Sonya Stefan.