Very early in the development of the course I decided to take the same concept of “wrecking” that the choreographers were working with and apply it to the costume generating process. In contrast to the nine choreographers with decades of training and experience in their field, I asked eleven students who had never designed costumes before – many of whom had never sewn before – to design, fit and manufacture costumes for a renowned venue. Some challenges for the students (aside from the lack of training) included not knowing what the final choreographed piece would be, having few chances for fittings and the very physical demands of designing clothing that can be repeatedly danced in and washed over a period of weeks.

In order to introduce the concept of visual communication through clothing we began with several quick-response draping exercises. I randomly assigned adjectives to the students – words like warped, joyous, and peaceful –  and instructed them to use a length of cotton to drape, cut, and pin fabric on a dress form to communicate their assigned word. In critique the idiosyncratic nature of communicating visually quickly became evident . Sometimes what one person perceives from a piece is very different from the message received by another. We also noted where certain signifiers were easily identified by all despite our individual preferences, because of a shared visual culture. We discussed the challenge of having eleven different minds designing and constructing costumes, and our concerns that the costumes look cohesive when finished.

As soon as possible we began viewing videos of the dancers and choreographers as they developed Big, Tiny, Little. We brainstormed in response, first with words, then with images and then with draping and pinning fabric. Early on, concepts that kept surfacing were disjointed, flight, and animalistic. As their advisor, having worked with students with limited sewing knowledge before, I made the decision to limit our raw materials to cut-and-sew knits, which can be manipulated easily without unraveling, easily washed and are forgiving in terms of fit. In establishing the color palette we discussed the desire to have each dancer read as an individual, unique but with elements that would relate to the others and read as a whole.

Time was moving swiftly so we committed to the broadest possible color palette with the knowledge that we could dip dye or cover with another layer if we felt the effect was too overwhelming. When our rainbow assortment of 3XX T-shirts came in we were nervous but leapt forward. Through a series of design assignments and draping exercises we began to limit our design detail palette to: changing the expected orientation (like using the sleeve as a neck opening to communicate disjointed), tucking or sewing folds in the fabric (this was a response to wanting to visualize the echo of movement) and draping the fabric in folds or tucks ( the hope was that the drape would hold the air and physically echo or punctuate the movement of the dancer). We also discussed wanting the “wrecking” and collaging process to be somewhat apparent to the viewer in the final presentation.

I assigned each student a dancer and a randomly chosen T-shirt and instructed them to use our chosen visual design vocabulary or palette to generate the first costume response drape on the dress form. We then took these to the dancers so we could see the first drapes in action during a rehearsal. After critique and discussion of what worked in terms of design, fit and concept with the choreography, I randomly assigned each first-response costumes to a different student  designer for further manipulation. Some students took their costumes back almost to the original T-shirt, while others saw a need for more more subtle intervention. For the second round of “wrecking” we also introduced a lightweight grey mesh fabric for texture, transparency, and as a further attempt to capture the after effect of the motion of the dancer. We discussed the idea of ghost limbs, and toyed with the idea of using flesh colored mesh, but were looking for ways to bring more cohesion to the color palette, and so went with grey both for the mesh and for the stretch bottoms which we also introduced in the second round.

After seeing the second round of costume interventions on the dancers and getting feedback from some of the choreographers we decided to introduce color in the bottoms as well. After being so afraid of using so much color we were really surprised by how much we liked it, and thought it complemented the piece. We felt comfortable adding more. Using oversized T-shirts once again, we created some of the drape pants and unitards by sewing the neck hole shut and using the sleeves as pant legs.

For this last and final round of “wrecking” we changed designers once again and also introduced an opaque knit in the form of half circles in a variety of sizes. These were added in some cases for practical reasons – to lengthen a costume that was too short but in most cases as a unifying element and another way to capture and highlight the movement of the dancer.

A final note on the choice of hair and make up:

Allie wore her hair in a very tight high top knot for almost the whole rehearsal process. We liked the clean lines it created, and wanted to edit the visual clutter that swinging hair would introduce to the piece. Our costume pieces still had an air of experimentation and collage, so we decided to add grey headbands and bun bands to emphasize the intentionality to the viewer and add finish.

Having now seen the costumes in conjunction with the finished piece I am struck by the many small coincidences that look intentional. I love witnessing the the little conversations within our established  visual vocabulary- the moment when Donna and Brendan sandwich their shared color story- literally two halves and a whole, the moment when Jennifer and Donna have a small duet with their grey opaque drapes swishing in time with one another and the duet Allie and Samantha have, their movements mirrored doubly in the construction of the mesh and opaque of their grey tights. I am especially moved by the interaction of John Boesche’s projection designs with the costumes. I am left in awe of the entire process, one that I frankly had fears about and approached with trepidation. I feel honored to have been invited to participate in this fabulous coming together of artists. Working with dancers has encouraged me to trust the process to take you to a place you might never have got to without moving forward, even through doubt. It’s a place that might be hard to imagine but which exists, if you keep opening yourself up to see it.