Jeux

Music Jeux (1912) by Claude Debussy

Choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky (1913)

In the original production of Jeux, the plot involves an innocent game of tennis that develops into an ambiguous ménage à trois between three players. It has been described as a “poeme danse” (literally a danced poem). The French word “jeux” can mean anything from “play” to play acting or role-playing or “gamble” which implies chance, luck, or fate. This costume is exquisitely rendered in silk voile, making the impeccable rendition of the grid that much more remarkable. The holes that fall less like tears than melting play beautifully into the delicate nature of the fabric as well, it could be said, as the delicate nature of our fates. The gossamer thin rendition of the piece may point to how thin the veil is between many things.

Creating movement within the grid structure for the photograph was a bit tricky. But the tension between the geometry of the design and flow worked well in the end.