I first came across these unbelievably glamorous portraits on Facebook. I couldn’t stop looking at them, and I still can’t. These photos are part of the NYC Dance Project, photographed by life partners Ken Browar and Deborah Ory. Both are professional photographers. Ory has a background as a ballet dancer, and Browar has been working as a fashion photographer for years. They knew they wanted to do a project together, but it took their 13-year-old to show them what the project should be.

“The inspiration for the project came from decorating our 13-year-old daughter Sarah’s room. Sarah is an aspiring ballerina and wanted her room filled with dance photographs. We made extensive searches at bookstores, on the internet (Amazon, eBay and others) and galleries. We purchased books, calendars and other photos and to our disappointment were not able to find images of the current dancers that Sarah admired. There were beautiful images of famous dancers from past generations – such as Baryshnikov or Markova, taken more than 40 years ago – but nothing of the current stars.

“Ken decided we needed to photograph these dancers ourselves. We were great fans of Daniil Simkin, the American Ballet Theatre Principal dancer and sent him an email asking him to be our first subject. Daniil loves photography and agreed to be photographed.” -Deborah Ory

While the project may have been born out of necessity, the photos were well planned, spectacularly lit, and beautifully shot. They serve as a stunning illustration of the beauty of the (perfectly honed) human form.