The Others

Capturing Cody Choi Behind the Lens

How did you first get interested in photography?

I grew up with my grandma who loves taking pictures and looking at pictures with me, which I enjoyed a lot too. I guess this has been ingrained in me? Then while I was touring with Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, through out the 3 years of world tour, I felt there were many places I knew I would just go once in my life, so I bought a Nikon D50 to capture different places and started to take dance photos with my colleagues, dancing, moving at different locations.

How does your role as a dancer direct your role as a photographer?

It all comes natural for me. I always think we’re choreographing and dancing together while I do dance photo shoot with dancers. We speak the same language, use the same dance vocabulary, it’s easy to understand each other.

Its very important that the dancers feel enjoyable and be trusted, respected during the session too. You can’t have them hop and move for a few hours non stop, so being a choreographer, and a dancer who has toured around the world working with many different dancers allow me to know how to direct and maximise different dancers’ ability- of course in a safe way.

What inspires you and your work?

Energy, youth, passion, football, dance, art, music, video game, performance, comic book, movie

What can we expect to see at The Other Art Fair?

I am bringing a new collection that I shot in Berlin last month while I was there working for a dance production. It’s a Self-Portrait collection which has captured how my body language reacted to this location that I visited.

Meet Cody Choi alongside 110 emerging artists at The Other Art Fair New York June 1-4. Book tickets online now.