EPB 006: Band On The Run

Performer and choreographer Louis Falco (1942-1993) took pictures. But it was clear at the outset—as a teenager—that his efforts were much more than casual. And as he matured, as he established himself as a world renowned dancer and, later, a notoriously engaging choreographer, his photography, amongst other things, can be seen as a notebook for his staging ideas. Poses, movements, atmospheres—he saw raw material for onstage composition everywhere. And the members of his company were always on hand to inspire him.

Alan Sener was a dancer with the final iteration of Falco’s Company (1978-1983), thereafter becoming the regisseur of the repertory and the archivist of the Louis Falco Estate. In early 2021, he set about editing a selection of Falco’s photography that might introduce to a new generation an otherwise neglected aspect of this ferociously creative person.

Sener spoke with publisher Hal Hartley this past March.

HH: How did this project come about?

AS: I knew that most of the prints, contact sheets and negatives of the pictures Louis had taken in his lifetime still existed. After he died, and in my capacity as archivist for the Louis Falco Estate, I filed them away for posterity always believing that someday they would make an interesting book. Plus, having known Louis for many years, I knew firsthand that he shot thousands of photographs, framed prints for family and friends, displayed them on the walls of his magnificent duplex loft, and even had some of them exhibited.

HH: Was Louis always with a camera while working? As you suggest in your introduction, he made many excellent photos of the company not dancing, but just going about the business of being a working dance company.

AS: Louis took impromptu pictures of the company while on tour and sometimes he would pull out his camera before and after rehearsals. Occasionally he shot the company in performance from the wings, but those are not really the best pictures in the collection. It’s the candid moments of the company he captured backstage, in dressing rooms, in bars and restaurants, hotel rooms and lobbies, airports, on the bus, and on the streets of towns and cities throughout the world that are special. It’s a kind of behind the scenes pictorial travelogue of a dance company on the road over a five year period.

But he also did all kinds of photo shoots in the studio that were set up or improvised. And, being the dancers that we were (ah yes, vanity circa late ‘70s, early ‘80s), we readily availed ourselves to the opportunity of being photographed.

“As a budding young dancer in the early 1970’s, I first saw an image of Louis Falco on a big black and white poster. He was already a dance world icon, and to many an idol. Then when I eventually joined his company, he became my boss, my choreographer, my mentor. But through the years, serving as his assistant, he also became my friend, a brother, an advisor and even a father figure of sorts. And now, looking back, I would have to say that in this lifetime, Louis Falco was my hero.” —Alan Sener

HH: Tell us about the company, your fellow dancers. Spending as much time as I have now with these photos, you really are a cast of characters.

AS: Louis invited me to join the company in 1978, and so there were many amazing dancers who preceded me and who I revered. But I think it’s safe to say that all Falco Company dancers were of the same ilk in that Louis chose to work with independently minded people, self-determined personalities who could each bring something different to the table. He often said that he wanted to work with people who happened to be dancers.

Louis had a deep interest in relationships both on stage and off, and so there was a lot of personal interaction among the dancers, not only of the blood, sweat and tears variety, but we also laughed our asses off. Rehearsals were energized and intense with Louis always setting the pace. We pushed each other in mostly cooperative ways.

HH: What are your hopes for this book?

AS: Well, I hope the book is appreciated by those who may have known Louis as an incredible performer and choreographer, but who may have never known the side of him as an artist behind the camera. In this way, I also hope the book finds an audience beyond dance. But I think most of all, I hope the book reaches students who have never heard of Louis Falco and that curiosities are piqued about who he was as an artist and as a man.

HH: So, have you continued working on the biography of Louis Falco?

AS: Yes. Now with the soon-to-be published Photos by Falco, I’ve turned my attention back to the biography—a book I initially had no intention of writing. In a nutshell, I took the long route in that the year before Louis passed away, he asked me to keep his repertory going. I had already been working for ten years as Louis’s choreographic assistant on new work and I had staged dances from his repertory for other companies. So, soon after he died, I set about restoring all existing film, video and audio recordings, which then led to a five year project of preserving, organizing and cataloguing all the printed materials he had saved—press clippings, programs, posters, itineraries, all kinds of publicity material, contracts, business and personal correspondence, his choreography notebooks, scripts, agendas, storyboards and a whole bunch of other dance memorabilia—84 boxes in all.

But while putting the archive together, it became really clear to me that there is a great personal and professional story to be told. So, I began doing my own research by conducting 242 interviews and by gathering more material from what turns out to be (thus far) twelve archives across five countries.

And, by virtue of having known Louis for many years, and by working in cooperation with his estate, namely his surviving sister Anna Falco-Lane, it’s also very much a behind-the-scenes story. So I hope to publish the first significant book about the life and work of Louis Falco.

Despite his intimate connection to dance and the dancers he photographed, Falco downplayed his interest in the subject and the physical attributes dancers brought to a shoot while at the same time praising their improvisational adaptability.

"I’m photographing dancers most of the time because I’m with dancers most of the time, not because I think a dancer’s body is necessarily more interesting to photograph… In fact, I think it’s less interesting because it’s so predictable… But it’s more that I end up having access to the dancers. Dancers are free, and also in terms of directing them they’ll do anything. And they’ll respond to it the same way I’m choreographing. And there’s also the trust my dancers have with me. So they’ll let me photograph them in almost any situation and they won’t necessarily be embarrassed by the pictures afterwards…"

—Louis Falco, recorded conversation with Melissa Shook, New York City, January 2, 1981. (Excerpted from the Introduction to Photos by Falco, by Alan Sener)

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