Andras Ladocsi Explores the Suggestion of Dance and Water

Andras Ladocsi's work addresses the physical and conceptual connections between water, dancing, the body, and musical notes—all of which form a flow that eventually joins a larger societal framework.

There are two recurring elements in Andras Ladocsi 's work: the movement of dance and the movement of water. With its languid but rhythmic lines, the title already invites us to a game of references, a reflux, which both water and dance provide. The human body is central, flowing and effortless, as though moved by waves or musical notes.

Water and dance are where these movements begin, followed by a rising consciousness in which the body reflects on itself before opening to others. An individual awakening that leads to a collective connection.

The lengthy title is a hyper-descriptive map that quickly transports us to the world of music and water: “There is a big river, in which there is a big island, in which there is a lake, in which there is an island, in which there is a small house, where a life is growing in a womb.”

It's a playful wordplay written with a friend, a descriptive litany identifying their place in time, a space larger and deeper than them, at once outside and within. Water is the defining element that unites everything around, ultimately their beings as well: from the river, to the island, to the lake, inside the human body where another forms, they become life, right before making an entrance, leaving the world of water, carrying water within. It’s a dance.

The title is a nesting doll, a place that includes another, as we zoom in from a bird's-eye perspective to the specific: the river, the islands, the human being. We're on the Danube river, near the larger island of Csepel. Kavicsos is a man-made lake with numerous small islets. Ladocsi and his friends are staying in a cabin on Pointy Island, one of those islands.

Ladocsi's life was (and still is) inextricably linked to water: He trained as a swimmer for over a decade before becoming a diver. Water was more than just a recreational activity. He eventually retired from competitive swimming, but his connection remains strong, absorbed by how our bodies and earth are made up of a huge percentage of liquid. “That's the physical side, and the metaphorically side as well,” he explains. “It's always about a connection between us and the environment… It’s this fluid connection, even [as] a collective consciousness.”

In Ladocsi’s work, we cannot but sense this fluid link, in equal form and force between the photographer and the sitter: “The activity of taking photographs creates this cooperation, like a dance. I'm highly intrigued in, and for long time, in this dance.”

He regards it as a fundamental aspect of human culture, reflecting on the role that music and dance have long had in our history—the ancient tradition of dancing, calling rain as a prayer for a bountiful crop, as a way to connect with the gods and nature. Dance, which is both primeval and therapeutic, has a healing potential. “It creates a state of mind where you can focus on yourself, through your body, through your movement, letting the energy flow.”

Beyond the surface of these harmonic motions, greater themes remain on the periphery, ready to be explored. The inevitability of individuals becoming society, "a connected consciousness," regardless of how diverse or independent we choose to be.  “You still can be an individual, but within your individualism, you're still gonna be connected,” Ladocsi says.

His perceptive eye, sensitive touch, and the sense of connection he crafts create a lyrical atmosphere in which all the elements dance in dynamic harmony and beauty.

It's a specific aesthetic code that's condensed in his photographs, the feeling they elicit, the notion of a sensation, both of the mind and the senses, bodily conditioning like the one Ladocsi feels at every turn, thinking and talking about his work, about where he finds himself in the present. “It's a refreshing breath of air—humid, warm, touching your skin. This air makes you fresh for a moment—that's how I feel right now.”