It was recently announced that the Barbican Art Gallery in London will dedicate an exhibition to dancer and choreographer Michael Clark.
Opening on 12th June, the event will feature film, photography, and materials documenting Clark's practice, plus collaborations and installations with works by Charles Atlas, Sarah Lucas, Wolfgang Tillmans, Cerith Wyn Evans, Peter Doig, Silke Otto-Knapp, Duncan Campbell and others.
Yet, if you can't wait till then, you can head to the Centre National du Costume de Scène (National Theatrical Costume Museum) in Moulins, France, and see David Holah and Stevie Stewart's BodyMap's costumes for Michael Clark Company, currently part of the exhibition "Couturiers de la Danse" (until 3rd May 2020).
There's actually a lot more to discover in this event curated by Philippe Noisette and celebrating the well-established connection between fashion designers and choreographers.
The event starts with Coco Chanel's bathing suits for Diaghilev Ballets Russes' production of "Le Train Bleu" (1924), a performance set at the seaside, with dancers playing tennis and golf.
That show actually featured a team of avant-garde artists with a scenario by Jean Cocteau and a front curtain by Picasso, but, historically speaking, this performance is considered as a very special one from a fashion perspective since it was the first time a couturier was invited to design costumes for the stage, combining her trademark style with the necessities of dancers (but it should be reminded that another early link along the dance/fashion line was established by the connection between Isadora Duncan and Mariano Fortuny).
From this first collaboration "Couturiers de la Danse" develops through different themes - "Shapes", "Second Skin", "Not So Classical" and "Materials" - turning into an exploration of unusual silhouettes, dynamic constructions, modern revisitations and adventures into innovative materials.
Dance purists will enjoy looking at the costumes and maybe reminiscing about a particular performance and its impeccable choreography.
But fashion fans will look at some of these creations and easily make connections between them and collections by Balmain, Dior, Givenchy, Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent or by younger designers, including Iris van Herpen and Gareth Pugh.
Walking through the exhibition, visitors will discover an eccentric design by On Aura Tout Vu, a sort of flapper dress with digital images of body parts printed on the fabric of the costume and the headdress, an ensemble created for "L'Enfant et Les Sortilèges" (2016), choreographed by Jeroen Verbruggen for the Monte Carlo Ballet.
Then there is an apricot tulle confection by Walter Van Beirendonck for Marie-Agnès Gillot's "Sous Apparence" (2012) for the Paris Opera Ballet.
His tulle costumes replicated on stage specific forms, from a tree to a surfboard, and actually posed some problems to the dancers who couldn't see properly out of the eyeholes of their tulle masks.
Among the pieces on display there's a crazy cowboy ensemble by Sylvie Skinazi for Daniel Larrieu's "Les Prophètes", created for the 1990 Biennale de la Danse in Lyon.
The costume is a veritable juxtaposition of high quality and cheap materials, combining a leather and suede jacket accessorised with a belt with a surreally oversized buckle and faux fur and PVC trousers.
Visitors interested in innovative materials and techniques will be intrigued by Iris van Herpen's metallic tutu for Benjamin Millepied's "Clear, Loud, Bright Forward" (2015) for the Paris Opera Ballet and by the story behind Issey Miyake's costumes for "The Loss of Small Detail" (1991) for choreographer William Forsythe.
At the time Miyake was working on pleated clothes, but his experiments with colours hadn't been successful. For Forsythe's performance he designed white, black and gray costumes and used them as trials to monitor the levels of durability. The dancers energetically moved in his costumes, allowing him to study the weak and strong points of his designs and to eventually launch his line Pleats Please three years later.
Among the newest costumes on display there are the designs created for Sébastien Bertaud's "Nuit Blanche" by Maria Grazia Chiuri for Dior.
The best thing about these costumes were the handcrafted flowers in delicate pastel tones sandwiched between two layers of tulle. This was a way to pay homage to Dior's passion for flowers and gardens, but also an expedient to recreate the look of flowers pressed in old pages of books, their fragile beauty and colours frozen in time, representing tangible tokens of intangible memories.
Walking around the exhibition fashion designers who want to step into this world will realise that a creation made for the runway can't be immediately transported onto the stage, but must be adapted to the space where the dance performance is taking place, and must take into account the choreography and the body of the performers.
This means that fashion designers working for the stage must constantly wonder if a design can actually be used for dancing or if the embellishments, decorative motifs and materials used for a costume may become a problem if the choreography is very energetic and if some dancers have to be lifted in the air (in which case decorative elements are applied only on strategic sections of a costume).
Working with a theatre's costume atelier is a key part of the job if you want to design for the stage, but this exhibition highlights how the mechanics of the body are best learnt when you collaborate with a choreographer.
This aspect is explored via the collaborations between the late Gianni Versace and Maurice Béjart and Jean-Paul Gaultier and Régine Chopinot, while the avant-garde design choices of choreographer Daniel Larrieu are also analysed.
In conclusion, this is a highly recommended show for all those fashion designers who would like to create costumes for the stage, for design students who want to learn more about the influence of dance performances on runway shows (and vice versa) and for dance fans who may want to rewatch extracts of their favourite ballets through the video installations and then analyse the costumes close-up. Last but not least, this exhibition should be seen also as a tribute to all the costume making ateliers working for dance companies and bringing to life the designers' and choreographers' artistic visions.
Image credits for this post
1. "Couturiers de la Danse", Centre National du Costume de Scène, Moulins, France, Installation view
2. Costume by Viktor & Rolf for "Shape", choreography by Jorma Elo. Dutch National Ballet, Amsterdam, 2014 © Erwin Olaf
3. Copy of the costume by Coco Chanel for "Le Train Bleu", choreography by Bronislava Nijinska. Opéra national de Paris, 1992. © CNCS / Florent Giffard
4. Costume by Hervé L. Leroux for "Rythme de valses", choreography by Roland Petit. Opéra national de Paris, 1994. Coll. CNCS/ONP. © CNCS / Florent Giffard
5. Costume by Karl Largerfeld for "Brahms - Schönberg Quartet ", choreography by George Balanchine. Opéra national de Paris, 2016. Prêt ONP. © © CNCS / Florent Giffard.
6. Costume by Riccardo Tisci / Givenchy for "Boléro", choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet. Opéra national de Paris, 2013. Prêt ONP.© CNCS / Florent Giffard
7. Costume by Hedi Slimane for "In memoriam", choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Création Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, 2004. Prêt Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. © CNCS / Florent Giffard
8. Costume by Sylvie Skinazi for "Hiatus", choreography by Lionel Hoche. Création, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, 1993. Prêt Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. © CNCS / Florent Giffard
9.Costume by "On Aura Tout Vu" for "L'Enfant et les sortilèges", choreography by Jeroen Verbruggen. Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, 2016. Prêt Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. © CNCS / Florent Giffard
10. Costume by "On Aura Tout Vu" for "Kill Bambi", choreography by Jeroen Verbruggen. Création Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, 2012. Prêt Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. © CNCS / Florent Giffard
11. Costume by Walter Van Beirendonck for "Sous apparence", directed and choreographed by Marie-Agnès Gillot. Opéra national de Paris, 2012. Prêt ONP. © CNCS / Florent Giffard
12. Costume by Sylvie Skinazi for "Les Prophètes", choreography by Daniel Larrieu. Création, La Ferme du Buisson, scène nationale de Marne-la-Vallée, 1990. © CNCS / Florent Giffard
13. Costume by Issey Miyake for "The Loss of Small Detail", choreography by William Forsythe. Ballet de Frankfort, 1991. Prêt Forsythe Productions. © CNCS / Florent Giffard
14. Costume by Issey Miyake for "The Loss of Small Detail", choreography by William Forsythe. Ballet de Frankfort, 1991. Prêt Forsythe Productions. © CNCS / Florent Giffard
15. Costume by Maria Grazia Chiuri / Dior for "Nuit Blanche", choreography by Sébastien Bertaud. Ballet de l'Opéra de Rome, 2019. © CNCS / Florent Giffard.
16. Costume by Gianni Versace for "Élégie pour elle, L., aile", choregraphy de Maurice Béjart. Création, Bruxelles, Belgique, 1989. Prêt Béjart Ballet Lausanne. © CNCS / Florent Giffard
17 and 18. Costume by Jérôme Kaplan for "Casse-Noisette circus", choreography by Jean-Christophe Maillot. Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, 1999. Prêt Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. © CNCS / Florent Giffard
19. Costume by Iris Van Herpen for "Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward", choreography by Benjamin Millepied. Opéra national de Paris, 2015. Prêt ONP. © CNCS / Florent Giffard
20. Costume by Iris Van Herpen for "Pelléas et Mélisande", choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui et Damien Jalet. Opéra Ballet Vlaanderen, Belgique, 2017. © CNCS / Florent Giffard