NONFICTION - Oct. 18, 1992

DANCERS by Philip Trager (Bullfinch Press: $75; 160 pp.). Like all photographic studies with an art life of their own Philip Trager’s “Dancers” does not depend on his subjects’ inherent theatricality or exalted sense of movement for a raison d’etre. Instead, this collection of startling black-and-white museum pieces, using lush alfresco settings that suggest the deserted Hyde Park in Antonioni’s “Blow-Up,” besieges the eye with its bold sense of mystery, contradiction and surprise. Sometimes an Arbus-like insolence dominates a dancer’s static gaze into the camera, as though answering its question or posing one. And sometimes figures hurtle seemingly into the sky or plunge to the earth. Vantages here are original and cropping provocative. But whether capturing the intimacy of Eiko and Koma (above) in all their sensate physicality, or the powder-white perfection of head-shaved, torso-bared Marika Blossfeldt against darkly gorgeous groves, Trager strikes a serious blow for the lens. His images, his very aesthetic, linger powerfully in the mind.