Catherine Hahn’s original costume
design provokes a spacial language
of arcs, tapering and slicing the
environment in this study of
transformation as, with care,
dancer Elissa Hanson prepares.
"I lay out the costume and then I put
it on. What’s happening is not a
day-to-day thing.
The costume is extremely live,
and being inside it is an intense
sensory experience - a loud constant
twanging, buzzing, rubbing
reverberation that no one but me is
aware of. I feel my eyes water, the
beat of my chest.
I have a sense of heartbreaking,
powerful, hilarious magic at the edges
of things. Huge opposites are in play. "
Designer Elliot Neck calls himself the
"Costume Technician" in the process.
A rare combination of dance and
technical insight qualify him as the
perfect contributor to this stage of
the work's development....a quirky
intelligence with a super-radar for
what can work.
"In this costume, there’s the fragility
of the units coming off the back.
So small that at first you cannot see
them, the line off the back responds
and exposes each nuance. It can show
the audience that there’s something
more going on than is visible.
Like Goldilocks, my task was
identifying and testing materials:
“This one’s just right – but when she
does this movement, it scrapes across
the floor. Let’s try….”
"There’s a sense of the performer’s
energy carrying on well past physical
form. The objects act as amplification,
magnifying gesture and detail.
The straightening of the spine doesn’t
end at the head, it continues up 8 feet in
the pieces attached to the hat – the
very top of the spine – as her
posture shifts. It brings that awareness
outside the body.
From my perspective, when simple
movement, which is so efficient, is
conveyed this way, it is particularly
eloquent - so fluent and pure."
For the second time in as many decades,
our huge studio at 1130 Jervis (St Paul's hall,
in the West End’s Davie Village) becomes a
performance venue.
Festival audiences enter a formal performance
environment - think Borges meets Bauhaus -
a suspended and magical white kingdom
inhabited by fantastical beings and unexpected
events.
Each figure wears an architecturally devised
costume: some appear like creatures, others
contraptions. All are extensions of an idea
of the body.
Dancer and garment delineate lines and
volumes in space, rendering the invisible
visible. The point of ignition between dancer
and garment reveals what we understand
and communicate about the body in space.
An outstanding group of designers and solo
artists have worked with Mascall to create
The Outliner, scored by Stefan Smulovitz.
A final concoction is underway, teaming
Mascall with innovative Vancouver designer Nathan Wiens (ChapelArts). The result will be
activated for the first time on opening night
by Robin Poitras (New Dance Horizons).
