Kagura

• Prize
  Silver in People/Culture
• Photographer
  Lucas Dragone
• Photo Date
  August 2023

Kagura is the dance of the divine,an ancient offering where movement becomes prayer and performance becomes communion. Rooted in Shinto ritual, it is not theater for spectacle, but a sacred bridge between humans and kami (spirits). Kagura enacts the harmony of nature and the cosmos, reminding us that art was once worship, and the stage, a shrine. The transmission of traditional theater and dance is not just the preservation of art—it is the guardianship of ancestral memory and a sacred dialogue between past and present.

Lucas Dragone (b. 1981) is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning photographer whose work traverses the boundary between the poetic and the documentary, the intimate and the universal. His journey into the visual arts is deeply rooted in a rich background in performance, theatre, and human connection, an evolution that speaks to a lifelong quest to understand and portray the complexities of the human condition. Dragone's photographic work often explores themes of identity, culture, and ritual.