A Lovely Photo in the New York Times

Its always nice to discover a photo of your work in The New York Times. The Times recently published this lovely photograph by Julieta Cervantes of costumes I designed in 2010 for Robert Battle's Channels.

The photo accompanied a review of the Alvin Ailey School's Spring Celebrations Concert in print in the New York edition on May 28, 2011. The performance was favorably reviewed by Roslyn Sulcas, and it is especially nice that she mentioned the costumes. You can read an online version of the review here.

"Process" and the NYPL Digital Gallery

"All this while I sat upon the ground, very much terrified and dejected."
N.C. Wyeth
Mid-Manhattan Library / Picture Collection
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?1697940

This spring I had the pleasure of working with a young choreographer named Dusan Tynek. Dusan was born in the Czech Republic but has established himself as New York City-based choreographer and company director of notable skill and promise. After I met with Dusan to discuss the new piece he was creating, I also became aware that we have something in common - an interest in local cultures, history, and folklore. Dusan told me he was creating a new piece called Widow's Walk. The term refers to an architectural detail that is often observable in homes in coastal communities, particularly in New England. A 'widow's walk' is a square, railed observation platform located on the roof from which the horizon can be scanned for returning ships. The romantic nature of the name suggests the dangers associated with maritime life.

"Widow'sWalk II"
Rob Gonsalves

Working with Dusan gave me the opportunity to use a resource that is truly a treasure to every designer - the New York Public Library's Digital Gallery. The NYPL has always been a favorite resource of designers based in the city. When I was an undergraduate student 15 years ago, using this resource entailed making a trip to the Mid-Manhattan Library branch and searching through files of clippings and color plates pasted onto card stock. When you checked them out, you were given a green folio to take them home in. Seeing someone carrying one of those signature folios likely meant they were a fellow designer or art student that couldn't afford their own research materials. Now, the entire collection (and so much more) has been digitized and is accessible to all.

I used the digital gallery to suggest a color pallete for the piece. Here are the images that inspired me and the resulting sketches and swatches.

The Men:

Whaler Rowing a Boat
Mid-Manhattan Library / Picture Collection
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?834485


The Wives:

"Momoyogusa = Flowers of a Hundred Generations"
Sekka Kamisaka (Japanese 1909)
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building / Spencer Collection
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?1269916


The Swimmers:

Greenland whale ; Sperm whale
From Naturgeschichte der Säugethiere : mit colorirten Abbildungen zum Anschauugs-Unterricht für die Jugend. (Esslingen : Schreiber, 1872) Schubert, Gotthilf Heinrich von (1780-1860), Author.
Mid-Manhattan Library / Picture Collection
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?823817

Lighting is the costume...

Here are some photos I took backstage at Thursday's tech rehearsal for Alwin Nikolais's Crucible, restaged by Alberto (Tito) Del Saz and Peter Kyle with funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts' American Masterpieces grant.

Nikolais = Genius. Amazing and breathtaking.

Things I did in 2010

Hello dear friends, in effort to keep this blog going as my digital portfolio, I have some new images to upload. But first things first...

2010 was a very busy year, but not so much due to design work (I just kept my regular gigs), but because I branched out to use my graduate degree for what it was intended - teaching history! I started teaching two courses at Brookdale Community College in New Jersey: "Early American Civilization" and "Recent American History". What do costume design and American history have in common? Well, a whole lot if you are a designer of plays and period pieces, but not so much if you primarily design for concert dance like I do! I know its funny to be an aspiring historian using design as a steady job (usually its the other way around), but I am fascinated by American culture - particularly material and popular culture, and as I always tell my students, history isn't about memorizing a series of facts, its a tool to understand the society you live in - how you fit into it, and how you can change it. Luckily, I love both of my vocations, I could never give up either one! Now, onto the designs...

Let's start exactly a year ago in February 2010. Time Lapse Dance celebrated its 10th anniversary season at Tribeca Performing Arts Center! As I mentioned in my last blog post, Jody [Sperling] received a grant from the STREB Lab for Action Mechanics' Emerging Artist Commissioning Program to create a Loie Fuller-inspired aerial piece. Jody has been performing on the trapeze for a number of years now, but for this project she recruited aerialist/contortionist/ballerina Rachel Salzman to perform in a harness. Imagine engineering the voluminous amount of fabric involved in a Loie Fuller-inspired costume around a harness but somehow also keeping that voluminous costume from wrapping around the cable suspending the dancer as she spins, flips, and flies!?!? With teamwork (and trial and error), we managed to do it - and the results were just breathtaking! Here is a picture of Rachel performing in Jody Sperling's Satellite.

Satellite by Jody Sperling
Photo: David Gonsier

At the same performance, dancers from Barnard and Columbia University joined the company as guests to perform a revised version of a work called Ghosts. I just love this picture of the students!

Ghosts Revisited by Jody Sperling
Photo: David Gonsier

Shortly after finishing up with Time Lapse Dance, things got underway at Marymount. Spring is a very busy time for the Dance Department at Marymount because that is when we host all of our guest artists. My favorite project of the semester was designing a new work for Robert Battle called Channels. Channels was a different kind of piece than I've seen Robert do before and it evolved over the course of a year, giving me plenty of time to think about it. I wanted the costumes to respond both to lyrical and percussive movements, and I wanted to evoke the feeling of a soloist working with a chorus (like in a Greek drama). I also wanted the silhouette of the costume to reflect some of the major shapes inscribed in the choreography: angles and semi-circular arches. (You can kind of see the idea from these beautiful photographs taken by Rosalie O'Connor.)

Channels by Robert Battle
Photos: Rosalie O'Connor

As we were finishing up Channels it was announced that Robert will become the new Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in July 2011. It is so nice when good things happen to good people, and given that this was my fourth time working with Robert I can honestly say that he is a good and kind man, and I am so pleased to have met him on his "way up." Congratulations Mr. Robert Battle - you will be great at your new job!

Channels by Robert Battle
Photo: Rosalie O'Connor

A second guest artist that created a new work at Marymount was Benoit-Swan Pouffer of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. Mr. Pouffer brought his own designer, Nancy Bae, to work with us and this was such a wonderful experience for me. Nancy comes from the world of fashion (and knitting!) - she is in charge of sweater designs at the GAP - and she is an amazing artist! It was fascinating to help her realize her design, which melded dance wear with improvisational hand-knitting, hand-dyeing, and deconstruction. Thank you Nancy for coming to Marymount! Here is a fantastic picture taken by Rosalie O'Connor of the piece titled "For All of Us" with Nancy's costumes (don't you LOVE the crochet with the semi-transparent mesh - so beautiful!)

For All of Us by Benoit-Swan Pouffer
Photo: Rosalie O'Connor
Costume Design: Nancy Bae

Summer was a very busy time too - I designed and built costumes for a new work of choreography by Katherine Duke for the Erick Hawkins Dance Company, and then I celebrated Christmas in July with my good friend Gina Ricca who designed a new Nutcracker and had me build some of the costumes! Unfortunately, I don't have photos right now...but I do hope to get around to writing a post about the various Nutcracker costumes I've built over the years, because its a whole bunch!

Fall came very quickly and I was nervous about starting my new teaching job, but I was also happy to have the opportunity to design for two faculty members at Marymount whom I've never worked with before. Alessandra Prosperi is a lovely dancer/choreographer working in the Graham tradition; she choreographed a piece titled Satsang and provided great guidance with her costumes. I also had the assistance of a student design major named Cinzia Mungo, so I was working with two women with beautiful Italian names at the same time! Thank you to Alessandra and Cinzia for making it such a delightful experience, and a special thank you to Eduardo Patino, the extremely skillful dance photographer who took these photos and gave me permission to publish them here on my blog.

Satsang by Alessandra Prosperi
Photographer: Eduardo Patino, NYC

The second choreographer that I felt lucky to work with in the fall was Jeff Shade. Jeff choreographs and directs musical theater, and he is a generous and upbeat person. When I found out that we would be working together, I knew I would be outside of my design 'comfort zone' but Jeff was very supportive and I think we made a successful team! Jeff's piece was a fun jazz number about the crazy dream scenarios that we all have when we are asleep - like running and running but not being able to get where you are going. The theme of the costumes was 'technicolor pajamas.' (On a somewhat related note, I have this recurring dream where I walk into my 10th grade math class with no shirt on, and I figure if I play it cool, no one will notice - but luckily, me and Jeff are more tasteful than that!) A design major also assisted me on these costumes, her name is Elise Vanderkley and she is such an asset to the Theatre Department at Marymount; I felt lucky to 'borrow' her for the Dance Department! Thanks also to Mr. Eduardo Patino for this picture.

Got Dreams? by Jeff Shade
Photographer: Eduardo Patino, NYC

Well friends, thank you so much for visiting with me on my blog! I wish you a wonderful 2011 and I hope you will come back soon.

I just wanted to remind everyone about Time Lapse Dance's upcoming 10th anniversary performances at Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Feb. 19th-21st, 2010.

The photo is dancer-aerialist Rachel Salzman rehearsing for Jody Sperling's "Satellite" at the Streb Lab for Action Mechanics. (Photo by David Gonsier) You can read about this project and more Time Lapse Dance fun in my previous post. Please come!

Pictures from last year...

Happy New Year everyone! Okay, I'm only about a month late. There are many benefits of having a blog. The first is that they keep you humble: if you need a reminder that no one really cares about what you think, then start a blog! Second, this blog makes me keep some kind of record of what I've been working on, which is the reason I happily persist. So, in that spirit here are some pictures from last year's projects.

Fall was nice at Marymount. Anthony Ferro revised a work of his called "Red Wagon," which he originally created in the early 1980s (I believe). The piece is set to a bunch of old-time jazz numbers. Check out these fun pictures taken by my personal photography hero Rosalie O'Connor. She always captures the mood of what's on stage in a very understated sort of way, and its amazing to watch her work. I always try to anticipate when I will hear her camera click and I've decided that she's pretty restrained and not just going for the big moments. She gets a lot of depth in her work that way I think.

Project number two at Marymount this past semester was costumes for a collaboration between Nancy Lushington (choreographer), Rob Dutiel (designer of the interactive set and lighting designer), and Rebecca Mushtare (digital media designer). I joined in after they had already been working together for several months. Basically, I just tried to design something that picked up the motifs from the set and that would act as a screen for the digital projections. They weren't complicated costumes and I feel they were successful because they didn't draw attention to themselves or overly complicate an already packed stage (there were 20 dancers). But, honestly, the simplest costumes are the most difficult to design - I agonized about every line!

Projections:

The Set:

The Costumes:

Hmmmm, what else has been going on? Oh yes, for the past few months I've been getting ready for the upcoming Time Lapse Dance season. Jody conceived of a piece with flags, which made me happy because sewing flags is pretty low-stress! I also made the costumes underneath...no design really, just something that would look decent on everyone (that's 97% of a designer's job in the dance world, the other 3% is saving your receipts for tax time). Actually, this is just half of the costume because the photos were taken at a residency and I may be changing the tops by the time the work premieres in February. These amazing pictures were taken in a dress rehearsal by the lighting designer's wife!!! His name is David Ferri and her name is Vanessa Cheung. When I saw these pictures all I could think was "Geesh, could this family have any more talent?!" No, they have more than their fair share of talent as it is!!! And Jody's choreography is so zen! I don't want to give too much away, so just look...

Hmmmm, what's wrong with this picture? Hint: Legwarmers!

But wait, there's more. Jody received a grant through Streb's Emerging Artist Commissioning Program to create an aerial work in their amazing facility (S.L.A.M. aka "the Streb Lab for Action Mechanics"). Jody decided to use the grant to create a piece in the style of Loie Fuller for aerialist (and ballerina) Rachel Salzman. Thus began a very intense process of figuring out how a costume of Loie-magnitude could work on a trapeze. Showing the sketch won't ruin the surprise because as always, its the choreography that transforms the fabric into magic. (And if you go to Jody's blog you can also see a snippet of rehearsal on video. I honestly just feel in awe.)

The Sketch:

But, since I can't tantalize you with actual photos of that, check out this groovy picture of Time Lapse Dance when the company performed in India for the opening ceremony of an international cricket tournament. They got to meet the Shaolin Monks - I wish they needed a costumer to travel along!



While were on the topic of aerialists, I also had the pleasure this year of collaborating for the first time with Above and Beyond Dance, a 'circus-infused' company directed by Chriselle Tidrick. Its not at all like Ringling Bros., or Cirque, or even Bread and Puppet. It's not about spectacle, or even spectacle with a message, its pure substance. Here are some photos taken by Julie Lemberger. This was my first time designing around harnesses, slings, swings, and other apparatuses and thankfully, Chriselle was very patient.


I call this photo "Portrait of a Discouraged Costumer" (Just Kidding!)





Well, that is all of the photos that I have for now. I wish everyone a great 2010, and I hope I can keep my resolution of turning down plastic grocery bags in favor of all of the reusable ones I've collected. So far, so good!

Clothing and Politics

All clothing is political. How we dress is probably the clearest expression of who we think we are, how we identify with others, and what we aspire to be. Clothing is the means by which we determine if someone is more or less powerful than us and what their values are. Where we buy our clothes, what we demand from them, and how we reinstate or challenge the conventions of what is 'acceptable' within our social milieu are all determined by our position in the network of human relationships on both a local and global scale and how we view the world. It is true that 'fashion' complicates the issue by constantly updating the sartorial codes that allow us to interpret a person's clothing correctly - but still, most of us average folks are pretty darn good at making accurate judgments of who a person is by what they are wearing.

A current exhibit at the Museum at F.I.T. examines the most overt examples of the relationship between fashion and politics. It would be a misleading to say that most of the examples are the kind of everyday political statements we all make with our clothes (that might not be the most exciting show) but still, its a good introduction. People should check it out - its free!