Costumes Designs for Spring Production

March 7, 2010 by Laura
Filed under Ballet 101, Beatrix Potter, Newsletter

We take great pride in the artistic quality of our annual spring productions. Our costume standards are the result of a near impossible list of “musts do’s”… The standards by which our design choices are made.

Our costumes must:

Be simple. We do not allow too much “bling.” The dancers must be seen enhanced by the costume. We do not want the costume to upstage the dancer. The result is usually qualified by “old fashioned” standards of modesty and beauty– nothing “flashy” or “shocking.”
Be practical. We try to build our designs on costume basics that can be re-used and interchanged. We try to allow for leotards that can be re-used for exercise or emergency ballet class back-ups, tutus that can be seen again in company productions or school talent shows, headpieces and accessories that can withstand dress-up play or costume make-overs. We also try to invent costumes that minimize backstage hastles by serving as more than one costume for those in more than one dance. (This is not always possible, but we try our best!)
Be economical. This is really dificult in a world where $2000.00 proessional tutus are common. Finding any decent costume under $100.00 can be an uphill battle. Most dance organizations will find a $75.00 costume and triple the price to help pay expenses through the summer months. We hunt out a $40.00 basic, dress it up to look like the $75.00 wholesale priced costume and pass the savings to our families. We also take advantage of kinderballet supplies to “loan out” costume acessories whenever possible. We have even been known to design costumes around what our dancers already have in their closets, allowing items to be re-used. We consider it part of what it means to “be creative!”
Have historical significance. Every year our performances embody a larger theme focusing on an historical ballet epoch such as “classical, “modern”, “national dance,” or “baroque.” This year our theme is centered around the Romantic era. Historically placed from 1815 to 1910, Beatrix Potter actually wrote her stories within this time, publishing her “Tailor of Gloucester” in 1903. Ludwig Minkus (ballet muisc composer), Marius Petipa (choreographer), and Jules Perrot (choreographer & ballet master) were all contemporaries in the mid to late nineteenth century. John Lanchbery reorchestrated much of Minkus’s music to create the Tales of Beatrix Potter Ballet for the Royal Ballet film in 1970. All of this suggests homage to the “romantic era of ballet.”

Basics for this year’s costumes:

Even though our themes are characters from Beatrix Potter: mice, rabbits, frogs, squirrels, and the like, costuming will be very “ballerina-like” as if the mice and squirrels are classical ballerinas. The theme of the Jeremy Fisher “frogs” will take more inspiration from the flowers and lily pads than any “bug-eyed amphibian.” Costumes will be decorated with pretty sashes and flowers with less emphasis on mouse ears and tails which will be added in good proportion.