with its combination of precise classical attention to detail and crazy new takes on about every aspect of moving the body across or along or above the floor.
caught Olivier’s eye:
Baroque dresses constructed of surprising materials…
Whatever else, it was to be a true rethinking of costume design—a thinking carefully about again—that draws on conventions and well-established visual pleasures, but scours them of every ounce of boredom, pretension or staidness.
No automatic pilots here!
Toward the end of the process
of making 3Seasons costumes,
I spoke with Michael again, and ask him what had been
the special challenges and pleasures of this project.
First challenges—
Coming to terms with the different shapes of women’s bodies;
employing new materials;
making garments that can stand up to the ferocious wear of dancers-in-motion and that needed, for the sake of serving the choreographic vision, to be dirtied, stretched, used in extreme conditions.
Then the pleasures—
which came from learning, putting known skills to use in creating something new; and from the working ensemble, each part of the enterprise feeding on the others with a rare degree of subtlety in communication between the co-creators.
