Woman and “Angel” in Ballet Errante, Paris,

1933

<p> <em>L’Errante</em> (The Wanderer), choreographed by George Balanchine for his short-lived Paris-based company Les Ballets 1933, showcased innovative set, lighting, and costume designs by the Russian artist Pavel Tchelitchew. Tchelitchew commissioned Bing to capture the ballet in dress rehearsal. Bing exploited the technical advantages of the recently introduced Leica camera—whose small size allowed her to easily manipulate the device so that it became, in her words, “an extension of my eye”—to create photographs that capture in a blur of light and shadow the instability and poetic gestures of the dancers’ bodies in motion. The Leica’s wide aperture and the sensitive 35mm film of the time made it possible for Bing to photograph without flash, thus fixing on film an echo of Tchelitchew’s complex multicolored lighting effects. </p>