Oberon's Grove: Paul Monaghan

Kokyat photographed dancer Paul Monaghan rehearsing with choreographer John-Mark Owen for a performance at Jacob's Pillow. John-Mark created a solo on Paul which - even in rehearsal - looked wonderfully expressive.

I asked Paul to tell me a little about himself and his background in dance; this was his response:

"i began training at a performing arts high school on long island under the direction of catherine murphy. i then began taking classes at the martha graham school of contemporary dance in manhattan. i went on to study dance at marymount manhattan college on the upper east side. i've worked with some notable choreographers such as Geoffrey Holder, Sophie Maslow, Chet Walker. I've also performed w/ the Anna Sokolow Player's Project at the joyce theatre. currently, I'm a freelance artist dancing with a few companies here in manhattan, and showing my own work; sometimes in collaboration w/ other artists/mediums/spaces. most principally, i'm dancing w/ Robin Becker Dance who will be premiering an evening length dance inspired by the book "They Marched Into Sunlight," by pulitzer prize winning author and washington post senior editor, David Maraniss in the spring of 2011."

While Kokyat was photographing in black and white, I was taking some casual pictures with my Lumix, one of which captured Paul's hair quite nicely: