Ravia's Eyes photograph from Belly Dancers series
by VCU alumna, Anne C. Savedge
Certainly Ravia's eyes have it, several times over, in this image. But in most of Anne C. Savedge's Belly Dancers series, it's the body that counts. In shot after shot, among spinning fabrics of fuchsia, purple and gold, bodies soar like birds and whirl in ecstatic splendor, singing a language that we all know but only dance can speak.
Savedge expertly captures the light and movement of the women's costumes, veils, and limbs as they dance. Her images, like the Middle Eastern music that belly dancing seeks to embody and reveal, take us to a place where everyday sadness and pain are shimmied and swung into something unexpectedly shining and joyful.
