Sequins/Sequence

A solo exhibition by Ashley Walters

Mezzanine Gallery: 06.08.26 - 17.09.26

Not all performances unfold beneath the spotlight. Some emerge in the pauses between movement, in rehearsed practice, quiet rituals, and the sustained commitment that makes performance possible. Sequins/Sequence is a long-term photographic project exploring the social and cultural life of Latin and Ballroom dance in the Western Cape. While centred on the dance floor, the work looks beyond performance as spectacle, attending instead to the connections and expressions through which dance is lived and experienced. Here, competition, discipline, celebration, and community converge, revealing dance as both a performative and deeply social practice.

Returning to rehearsals, social dances, and competitions, these photographs linger between intuition and precision: the weight of sequins in motion, the shimmer of costumes, the exchange of glances, and the quiet concentration that accompanies each performance. The photographic series unfolds as both an archive and an ongoing relationship with the community from which it emerges. Individual photographs accumulate into a broader visual rhythm, where moments of movement, connection, and exchange resonate across the work rather than existing as isolated performances.

Presented as a sequence, the exhibition invites viewers to look beyond the spectacle of dance towards the connections, expressions, and shared experiences that sustain it. In doing so, Sequins/Sequence considers photography not simply as a record of performance, but as a means of revealing the social life that unfolds through movement.

Association for Visual Arts .