Attimo, sei bello! in Rome – a photographic exhibition celebrating the beauty of dance

“Fragments of eternity that tell of beauty, strength, even pain. Shots snatched from the fluid and passionate movement of dance and framed to become ‘forever’.”

So runs the blurb of the photographic exhibition that runs from today, 12 December 2022, until 21 March 2023. The title of the exhibition, Attimo, sei bello! (Moment, you’re beautiful!) comes from a line in Goethe’s Faust, sometimes translated as “If ever I to the moment shall say: Beautiful moment, do not pass away!”.

The double exhibition also shows ballet costumes designed by the Italian fashion designer Roberto Capucci, alongside photos by Damiano Mongelli, Pierluigi Abbondanza, Cristiano Castaldi, Vincenzo Cositore, Massimo Danza, Jack Devant, Younsik Kim, Malcolm Levinkind, Enrico Ripari, and Gramilano aka Graham Spicer.

The exhibition has been organised by Daniele Cipriani Arte and Tina Vannini, with photos coming from some of the photographers who have captured moments from Cipriani’s Les Étoiles galas over the years featuring some of the world’s best-known dancers. In this show are photos of both Polina Semionova and Svetlana Zakharova in The Dying Swan, Marianela Nuñez in Giselle, Silvia Azzoni and Alexandre Ryabko in Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler, Friedemann Vogel in Mona Lisa, Natalia Osipova in Ashes, Sergio Bernal in The Swan and again Bernal together with Calvin Royal III in Touché, Vadim Muntagirov and Fumi Kaneko in Swan Lake (with costumes by Capucci), Maia Makhateli in Don Quixote, and Jacopo Tissi and Alena Kovaleva in Diamonds.

The gallery is part of the Margutta Veggy Food & Art in Rome, so there’s a feast for the eyes and the palate.

Gramilano Editor

Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.

Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.

He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.