Untitled (children dancing in dance class) c. 1950

Curator: Jack Gould's Untitled photograph depicts a dance class, with children in mid-movement. It's a small gelatin silver print, just a few inches square, housed at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: The high contrast gives it an ethereal quality. It's almost ghostly, these children suspended in time and space, reaching upward. Curator: Considering the socio-political context, dance, especially for young girls, has often been a space for prescribed gender roles and expectations. What do you make of that tension here? Editor: There is a beautiful sense of both freedom and constraint. The uniformity of dress and movement versus the individual expressions, the joy of the physicality of movement. It reminds me of how dance served as one of the few places women could convene. Curator: It is fascinating how Gould captures the cultural narrative around childhood. Editor: It’s a powerful distillation of the beauty and burdens we place on young girls.