Not sure how many of you tuned in yesterday to watch the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s New Year’s Day Concert that featured during the intermissions footage of members of the Vienna State Ballet dancing in costumes by Vivienne Westwood. I did and I must admit I was disappointed.
The colours of the costumes in the first intermission, especially the buttercup yellow gown, went well with the renovated interiors of the Liechtenstein Palace. Yet there were a few mistakes that ruined the intermission for ballet lovers: most gowns were extremely long (the pale blue costume looked more or less fine, if it hadn't been for what looked like an ill fitting bodice...); the underskirts were formed by too many layers of tulle and the fabric on top gave the impression of being too heavy and of suffocating the tulle underneath.
As a result the female dancers seemed slower than their male counterparts and at times they didn't move gracefully at all. The excessive amount of tulle also proved a huge distraction if you wanted to focus on the feet and on the steps (in most cases when you have a long tutu, you also get rid of a few layers of tulle) .
Things didn't get better when the Polka part came on: the Scottish costumes looked indeed out of place in the palace, and the choreography just didn't go well with the costumes. The mini-kilts donned by the female dancers also created an undesirable duck/goose bottom effect since excessive layers of frothy tulle were used to give more volume around the back of the kilts.
The causes of these mistakes can be attributed to two precise reasons: the costumes were adaptations of evening gowns from fashion collections, so they weren't created on purpose for this event, and the designer didn't work closely with the choreographer and the dancers to understand which were their main needs and prerogatives.
In a nutshell, this is exactly what happens when a pre-existing idea is imposed onto somebody else's vision without wondering if that idea could really work out. In a way we learnt a useful lesson from this exercise in adaptation rather than creation, though most of us would have preferred watching a pas de deux rather than a faux pas.
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Comments