Omar Z. Robles is a New York-based photographer, originally from Puerto Rico, best known for photographing ballet dancers on the streets of New York City. Instead of a stage or a studio, his dancers leap across crosswalks, balance on bike racks and arch through clouds of street steam while taxis, commuters and tourists carry on around them. The gallery below collects 37 of these portraits, with notes on where they were made and what makes each one work.
The pictures have been widely shared because they bring together two things that rarely meet: the precision of classical ballet and the rough, unplanned energy of a big city. Many of the dancers he has photographed have trained with or performed for major New York companies, and earlier coverage of the project named dancers from American Ballet Theatre and Dance Theatre of Harlem among them.
Who is Omar Z. Robles?
Robles describes his work as a mix of street photography and storytelling. On his own blog he explains that his interest in telling stories through movement began with the French mime artist Marcel Marceau, who taught him to read the world through small but striking gestures. Before the dance series he photographed celebrities, athletes, politicians and everyday residents for publications including Hoy (the Chicago Tribune's Spanish-language paper), Metro San Juan and Latino Leaders. In New York he swapped the ordinary passers-by in his street photography for dancers and asked them to tell short stories with their bodies.
The results were picked up by Mashable, Instagram's own blog and Harper's Bazaar, and his audience grew into the hundreds of thousands. In a line widely quoted from his blog, he says dancers keep "pushing their bodies to the very extreme of what is humanly possible" while making it look effortless.
A dancer in a striped skirt throws one leg high behind her while a plume of white steam pours from an orange-and-white street stack. These temporary stacks vent the city's underground steam network, and Robles uses them again and again as a natural smoke machine.
A glass wall turns one dancer's backbend into a mirrored, almost symmetrical shape, with the towers of a suspension bridge behind her. The trick depends on a precise camera angle: a few centimetres to either side and the reflection would no longer line up.
On a quiet, rain-dark street lined with brick warehouses, a dancer in a black dress balances in a low arabesque. The bridge fading into fog at the end of the street gives the picture depth and a sense of early morning stillness.
Here the pose is grounded rather than airborne: knees bent, hands on thighs, one foot on pointe in the middle of an empty avenue. The lane markings lead the eye straight to her, a classic street-photography way of framing a subject.
Under the neon signs of a Chinatown street, a dancer in a denim vest pulls one leg up beside her ear. The busy background of shop lettering and fire escapes makes the clean vertical line of the leg stand out even more.
Standing en pointe on the back of a parked bicycle at night is as much a test of balance as of nerve. Rising onto the tips of the toes in reinforced pointe shoes is the foundation of classical ballet, but doing it on a bike rack is pure Robles.
A dancer in a coral dress bends backwards over a kerb while a yellow cab rolls past. The deep arch of the spine, called a cambré in ballet, mirrors the curve of the car's roof behind her.
Stretched almost horizontally across a low ledge, a dancer hangs between hand and foot as tall office blocks catch the late sun. The pose shows the strength side of ballet that audiences rarely notice from the stalls.
In a subway station, a dancer presses one hand to a tiled pillar and lifts her leg into a near-vertical split while a train blurs past behind her. The motion blur comes from a slower shutter speed, which keeps the dancer sharp only because she holds perfectly still.
Dancers from New York's great companies
Two of the companies linked to the series have deep roots in the city. American Ballet Theatre was founded in 1939 and in 2006 was recognised by the US Congress as America's National Ballet Company. Dance Theatre of Harlem was founded in 1969 by Arthur Mitchell, who abandoned plans to set up a ballet company in Brazil after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and opened a classical ballet school for the children of Harlem instead.
A dancer hangs from a traffic-signal pole with her legs split wide, while a pedestrian walks by and a cab waits below. Moments like this, with ordinary New Yorkers going about their day, are what give the series its street-photography character.
The same steam stack from earlier becomes the backdrop for a grand jeté, the long travelling leap that ballet glossaries describe as a split in the air. Catching the very top of the jump takes split-second timing from the photographer.
Beneath the steel underside of a bridge, wrapped in fog, a dancer in a long black dress rises tall on a rock with her arms overhead. It is one of the calmest images in the set, built on scale and atmosphere rather than athletic display.
Crouched on pointe at the edge of the pavement in a teal leotard, this dancer turns a kerb into a stage. The tightly folded shape shows control at low level, which can be harder to hold than a big extension.
Backlit by a low sun with a rooftop water tower in the distance, a dancer stretches into an arabesque: one supporting leg, the other extended straight behind. The lens flare softens the outline and gives the scene a warm glow.
Rising on pointe in a cloud of steam at a crosswalk, a dancer in red shorts tilts her head back to the sky. The yellow taxi and the zebra stripes place the moment unmistakably in Manhattan.
In the middle of a wide downtown street, a dancer in denim balances on one pointe shoe and lifts the other leg almost straight up. Parked cars and storefront signs keep the image anchored in everyday city life.
One of the few duets in the series: a male dancer soars above while his partner sinks into a deep lunge below. Stacking a high jump and a low pose in the same frame creates a strong diagonal across the picture.
On a footbridge walkway framed by pink-painted railings and beams, a dancer opens her arms as her sheer skirt swirls around her. The repeating lines of the structure work like a perspective drawing pointing back to the figure.
The ballet poses behind the pictures
Many of the poses use classical vocabulary. An arabesque is a balance on one leg with the other extended straight behind; an attitude lifts the working leg with the knee bent; a grand jeté is a long leap from one foot to the other. Seeing these shapes against concrete and steel makes their difficulty easier to appreciate.
Balanced on one hand with her legs split above the asphalt, this dancer borrows from acrobatics as much as ballet. The dark, shadowed avenue behind her makes the lit figure pop forward.
A grand jeté in heavy rain beside a row of classical columns, with traffic lights and a yellow cab glistening on the wet street. Shooting in bad weather is a deliberate choice: the rain adds texture and reflections that a dry day cannot.
A male dancer folds into a low, spider-like crouch against a sunlit brick wall, and his shadow becomes a second figure. Robles often lets light and shadow do as much storytelling as the pose itself.
Holding one foot high above her head as the sun sets at the end of the street, this dancer shows a held développé, a slow unfolding of the leg into full extension. The parked car and empty road give it a quiet, after-hours feel.
A dancer leaps between yellow cabs and a delivery truck with her hair flying. Few images capture the tight, crowded energy of Midtown traffic quite so well.
This grand jeté happens on the wooden promenade of the Brooklyn Bridge, with one of its Gothic stone towers and steel cables behind. The bridge, opened in 1883, is one of the most photographed structures in the city, which makes a fresh angle on it all the more striking.
Mid-leap beneath the arched steel of an elevated structure, this dancer is framed by girders that repeat into the distance. Industrial settings like this contrast nicely with the light, lifted quality of a jump.
A dancer hooks one leg over a black standpipe and extends the other high up a white brick wall. Robles has said he prefers to draw on what he finds in front of him rather than on fantasy, and street furniture like this is a good example.
A bare-chested male dancer jumps in front of a closed metal shutter, legs tucked and arms flung wide. The plain, ribbed background removes distractions and puts all attention on the shape of the jump.
Folded deeply forward over one pointed foot, a dancer stands on the double yellow line beneath an elevated track. The road markings run straight towards the camera and lock the viewer's eye on her.
Steam, rain and bridges: the city as a stage
Robles keeps returning to the same ingredients: steam, rain, yellow cabs, bridges and long straight streets. Each one adds movement or texture that a studio backdrop cannot provide.
Leaning back against a black iron fence in a loose white dress, this dancer seems to melt into the railings. The pose is soft and almost theatrical, closer to a scene from a story than a technical display.
A dancer in a brown sweater lifts one leg in attitude, with the knee bent, while reaching up with one arm in a narrow street lined with bicycles. Everyday clothes rather than costumes are a recurring feature of the series.
In a canyon-like street of tall grey buildings, a dancer extends one leg to the side while balancing on pointe. Robles often places dancers in the centre of narrow streets, where converging lines draw focus to them.
At night in pouring rain, with a pedestrian under an umbrella and a cab behind, a dancer arches back on pointe. The streetlights turn each raindrop into a streak of light around her.
In an arabesque on a crosswalk, a dancer in white is being photographed by tourists on the corner. The passers-by with cameras add a playful layer, a reminder that these shoots take place in public, in real traffic.
On a wet cobbled street lined with trees and brick houses, a dancer in a patterned red dress lifts her leg into a standing split. The cobbles and greenery give this image a calmer, more residential mood than the Midtown shots.
Another cobbled street, another standing split, this time with traffic lights and delivery vans behind. Comparing it with the previous photo shows how much a change of backdrop alters the feel of a similar pose.
Standing still on pointe at a rain-soaked kerb in a green dress, this dancer contrasts with the blurred taxis rushing past. It is a simple idea that captures the series in one frame: stillness against speed.
The series closes with a dancer whose wide red-and-pink skirt flares into a circle as she turns on pointe on a downtown pavement. Costume, motion and timing come together in a single frozen instant.
Tips if you want to try street dance photography
The series also works as a lesson in technique. A few habits stand out across the set:
- Shoot low. Many frames are taken from near ground level, which makes leaps look higher and lets lane markings lead into the picture.
- Use the city's lines. Bridges, crosswalks, railings and narrow streets act as frames and guides for the eye.
- Embrace weather. Rain, fog and steam add atmosphere and soften busy backgrounds.
- Keep the people. Pedestrians and taxis remind viewers this is a real street, not a set.
- Put safety first. Work with trained dancers who know their limits, warm up properly, and never stage a pose in moving traffic.
Robles posts new work on his Instagram and his blog, where he also shares film photography and work made outside New York.
Sources: Omar Z. Robles, About; Omar Z. Robles blog; Omar Z. Robles on Instagram; Wikipedia: American Ballet Theatre; Wikipedia: Dance Theatre of Harlem; Wikipedia: Glossary of ballet; Wikipedia: Marcel Marceau. All photographs by Omar Z. Robles.
it great photos....
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