Work meets art in Fordham's dance team

BY RAY FLORIANI

Twice a year, it is time to put aside the laptop and become an exhibiting artist. My wife, Karen, an artist for many years, regularly enters; and does quite well in, shows around the area. As a retired employee at Rutgers Dental School, she exhibits twice a year in their show and invites yours truly.

For the show this past fall, I prepared by studying various images with an idea of a landscape shot. Not all my work is basketball-related, though about 90 percent of it is. In reviewing, a shot from the roundball archives caught my attention. Covering Fordham's women's basketball team against Davidson last season, I captured the Fordham dance team during a routine. The picture was published in a Daly Dose Of Hoops photo essay. It happened that four of the members were airborne in perfect unison, so perfect that their hair whisked in the breeze in perfect coordination. I showed Karen the shot, which she thought very highly of. It was exhibited in the halls of Rutgers Dental/Medical School in Newark from September through early January.

During coverage of Fordham against ­St. John’s back in December, I sought out the dance team captain, a personable young lady by the name of Juliana. I told Juliana, a junior from Long Island, about the picture and exhibit, and she loved it. A few weeks later, when covering Fordham's game against George Mason, I brought the framed picture. The dance team as a group also loved it. Two members on the team were in the picture, and posed with yours truly for a shot. The entire team enjoyed the picture and notoriety of being on exhibit four months as part of a well respected art show. They even enjoyed my title, ‘Tiny Dancers,’ after one of the best songs by a personal favorite artist, Elton John.

The two dancers in the picture are Kara from Boston, on the left, and Allison on the right, from Denver. Both are sophomores and enjoyed friendly banter over the New England Patriots and Denver Broncos' meeting in the NFL playoffs. In the picture itself, Allison is on the left in the back and Kara on the right in front. The Fordham dance team action shots have graced tempo-free covers and photo essays many times on the site. The opportunity to have them as subjects in a noted art exhibition was truly gratifying, not just for yours truly, but the team members as well.