We went to look at the 3 sites we had choosen for the costumes and spent time looking at the “ Living in Silk” and “Unravelled” exhibitions for inspiration. We came away with lots of ideas…
Next up we split into 3 teams and started coming up with ideas and designs for each space, the Arches, the Bandstand and the Windowledge.
We started to play with the fabrics to see how they moved and draped, pinning them to mannequins to get a sense of what we could create.
Jennifer Maddison, young leader for WEYA at Dance 4 who will be choreographing the performances also came to see the group. She talked to them about their ideas for each of the performers, the groups thought of a character and words to describe the costumes and movements.
They were-
The bandstand group. a bird,(possibly a Phoenix) powerful and strong, trapped, a lot of arm movements.
The Arches. A male and female character, traditional (Edwardian/Victorian) but also mischievous. The group wanted to take movements from the paintings in the long Gallery, particularly the stance of a couple of the sculptures.
The Window ledge. A tree, growing, earthy movements. The staircase is surrounded by photos of people running and climbing up the stairs and we thought we could use this as well in the movements. We decided that this costume would allow the performer to be very free to move.