Smooth Operator
JJ Tiziou documents How Philly Moves
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JJ Tiziou
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If you ask JJ Tiziou, he'll tell you he doesn't really dance.
If you then watch him in action photographing dancers, you'll feel like perhaps he wasn't telling the whole truth.
The man approaches his subjects with comfort and zeal, crouching in front of them, hopping on the balls of his feet, swaying from side to side, moving in step with their movements, popping his strobe flash and filling his frame with bright color and motion.
"It's funny, and nothing has come of this yet, but three different choreographers have approached me and asked about doing a dance piece of me photographing dancers," Tiziou laughs.
His voice races with the breathless rapidity of constant caffeination as we talk over — surprise — coffee. His thought process seems to follow in kind. Tangents build from tangents, new ideas fire off at random, coalescing into a grand vision. Listening to Tiziou speak, it makes perfect sense how an idea, which might have culminated in a simple photo exhibit, has instead become a multimedia public art project positioned to become much more — an arts-promotion vehicle, perhaps, or a citywide community-building program.
We're not there yet. Right now, How Philly Moves is an installation in a University City storefront. Its growth hinges on the response it receives.
An established documentary shooter, Tiziou became actively interested in dance photography while covering the 2003 Fringe Festival. The challenge of working amid unexpected movements and under constantly changing light was alluring; newly plugged in to Philly's theater and dance scene, he pursued the subject further. Over the next few years, Tiziou photographed dancers whenever he could, creating lively images awash in swirling colors, blurred with motion.
"It was a big shift for me," he says. "What I do with dance isn't studio photography, but it isn't performance documentation, either. It's kind of halfway between the two."
His occasional interest became a full-time pursuit this spring when SEPTA announced plans to commission a dance-themed art installation for the rehabbed 46th Street El station. Energized at the prospect, Tiziou used his connections to organize a photo shoot with different types of dancers — professional, casual, young and old. Participants signed up at howphillymoves.org, a schedule was drawn up, clamp lights were purchased, and Tiziou spent two days in April darting around his dancers as they paraded before a black backdrop.
Although he was a finalist, Tiziou ultimately didn't receive the SEPTA commission. But with such a tremendous response from the open call, the project reached beyond his original vision. Tiziou pushed onward, and last Thursday, How Philly Moves was installed in a vacant 36th street storefront between Walnut and Sansom.
The downstairs level features a grid of prints cross-sectioning the best of April's shoots, while the rest of the images taken so far are in an upstairs window. The operative phrase there is "so far."
Tiziou's only concrete plans for the project's future are several nights of a photo booth at West Philly's Studio 34, as part of the Live Arts/Fringe Festival in September, where dancers of all stripes can sign up to perform before his camera. The images, edited on the fly, will be projected out into the lobby.
Tiziou pulls up a map of Philadelphia on his laptop screen. It's filled with blue dots, each representing a dancer who signed up to be part of the shoot. A group came down from Northeast Philadelphia to do the hustle. A belly dancer volunteered, as well as an old couple dancing cheek to cheek.
"It just shows that dance is really a universal thing," Tiziou says. "It's something everybody does, in some form."
Even if you're the one in front of the dancers, bouncing around and clicking away on your camera.
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