A few miles east of Page, Arizona, on the lands of the Navajo Nation one finds Hasdestwazi (meaning “spiral rock arches”), the spectacular slot canyon known in English as The Corkscrew or Lower Antelope Canyon. On the flat surface of the desert is a rather unimposing crack in the dry sandstone, but on entering the crack and descending fifty or sixty feet into the earth, there is a world of sweeping swirls and flowing sandstone walls carved by millions of years of erosion. Flash floods entering the slot canyon concentrate their power to scour the walls into incredible shapes. Light enters the canyon depths only from the narrow slit on the surface and color is distorted: purple, mauve, and orange predominate.

The canyon walls, so reminiscent of flowing fabric, remind me of dancers leaping, twirling, gliding, costumes swirling with their every movement — Loïe Fuller and Isadora Duncan come immediately to mind.

Dancing Antelope #7: Photograph by Will Tenney
Photographs by Will Tenney Return to DANCING ANTELOPES button

Dancing Antelope #7


Copyright © 2017 by Will Tenney. All rights reserved.
Please do not copy without prior written permission.

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