Photographer Lar Rattray:

“I know I’m not alone in saying that I’ve always been drawn to what happens ‘behind the velvet curtain’. It’s one of those inexplicable childlike fascinations… so I literally leapt at the chance to go backstage with a friend who was dancing for Cape Town City Ballet at the time.”

Photographer Lar Rattray:

“This was years ago, I was fresh out of art school and had to borrow a camera. The dance company was in the final throes of rehearsals before their opening of Swan Lake… and for days I hid in the wings amidst a sea of quiet chaos and sweat, enchanted by these weightless beings. Their pure disregard for inhibition was bewitching; but their raw stamina, nothing short of astonishing. I will never forget the seamless transition between the animal like exhaustion I witnessed backstage, to the seemingly effortless and untiring grace seen by the audience onstage.”

Photography: Lar Rattray

via:missmoss