Questions answered for C.E.

1. How did you get into the industry?

I studied fashion at Parsons in NY and quickly became disinterested in the NY fashion culture and industry and wanted to immediately do the most creative and fantastic designs possible. I found the theater department at Purchase College by accident thinking initially that I would do fine art with a sculpture concentration and still work with adorning the body. After graduating I worked as much as I could for free and designed for film, off Broadway theater and whatever my friends were doing. I met lots of actors, film makers and dancers at Purchase. My "break" was designing a wedding dress for Julia Adam, she loved our collaborative process and asked me to design for Cincinnati Ballet in 2002. Since then I have been almost exclusively designing for ballet, meeting other choreographers as they see my work for Julia on mixed rep programs.

2. What inspires your designs?

My first task is to respond to what the choreographer is thinking, enhance and illustrate his/her vision or story. Beyond that I am very inspired by nature, the banding of colors in sunsets and seascapes, plant textures, nature's math. I recently created a set of ballet costumes based on the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, which exists in nature. A spiral makes a a beautiful asymmetrical drape for a skirt.

My mentor Michael Cesario challenged me to create designs with the following mantra:

"you don't know what you are looking at..." -- to try to always transform the materials I am working with so they read as something else. I like to play with sheer layers of color to create new iridescent vibrations of color, and experiment with cutting lycra in different ways to create texture.The theater, lights, stage perspective, etc. can make something transform from a $4.00 lycra nylon mesh into what appears as a $40 Italian silk chiffon. 

It is important to always look at things from 20 feet away in a fitting to see what the audience will see. 

I was the fabric shopper for Metropolitan Opera and became very knowledgeable about what is available in terms of fabric. Sometimes I fixate on a particular fabric and use that as the basis for a design. Spandex House has an amazing stretch lame from Japan that I love to use, and a reflective silver lycra made for night runners that I am itching to design with. Arts funding in the US is scarce, and so I find it most cost effective to let the fabric do the work for me whenever possible, it is usually made elsewhere, India, Korea, China, Thailand, where the cost of living is lower than in the US.

3. How do you create your concepts?

Concept is driven by my own emotional reaction to a work and by my aesthetic taste and current influences. I try to honor the bodies I am working with and talk to the artistic director of a company to make sure what I am thinking will work for the program a ballet is on in terms of palette and silhouette.

Do you draw, paint, use technology, etc?

 I use everything, even collage.

4. Do you create digital versions of your designs?

 I usually sketch quickly in pencil during rehearsals and then scan and finish in Photoshop.It is always better to sketch in the studio with the dancers. The choreographer sees their phrases in the drawing and responds more readily to what they recognize as their own.

 I recently became worried that all of my designs were too digital, and somehow slightly unauthentic because someone else has authored the Adobe programs I am using. I made a new commitment to designing more with pencil, aquarelle pencil, and water color.

5. What are the key things you need to remember when designing for ballet?

•  Trust your own taste. Choreographers work with movement as a medium from an experiential and emotional place, and don't necessarily know what will look right on stage. If you don't love what you see out there change the design until you do.
• The dancer's comfort is paramount. The design has to look good in motion and protect them from whatever partnering, sliding, and other strange things they do on stage. Imagine how you would feel wearing that you have designed. If they are worried about a brief riding up or a bodice that is cut too low it will distract them from being free in their movement.
• Think about what you have designed in terms of how the dancer could possibly injure themselves or their partner with it. Sharp sequins, trim that has loops where a hand or finger can be stuck, pointy headpieces or scratchy net can all lead to injury.
• Be flexible and never let any idea become too precious. If a choreographer cuts something during final dress or asks for changes that you don't agree with, think of it as yet another opportunity to design something else fabulous.
• Design for individual bodies as much as possible. The amount of detail on a woman who is just five feet tall should be less than on a woman who is six feet tall on pointe. A man with giant thigh muscles has to look as good in his tights as a man with long slender legs and small calf muscles.
• Think about the size of the venue the ballet is being performed in and how things will look from far away and up close. Design with broad strokes first for large houses because that is how the costume will be seen. Then fill in the interesting details for the first ten rows to see.
• Establish a good collaborative relationship with the lighting designer so that you can ask for changes in a respectful way. The lighting design can deeply affect your choices and either solve problems and enhance your design, or change your palette and hide details that you spent days working on.

6. What are some of your favourite designs and why?

I love this design for Dwight Rhoden's Chromatic. The leotards each have about 45 different pattern pieces and I was able to use strategic placement of the bands of color and overlays to flatter each individual body, and still have a cohesive subtle palette appropriate for an ensemble work.

James Kudelka's Hush has twenty one dancers all in silk organza versions of pedestrian clothing. As each new section comes out the palette shifts slightly so that the ballet starts in flesh tones and eventually ends up in dark Prussian blue. The ballet is about the cycle of lives from youth into death. I love the floaty quality of the organza.

I love the  Chinese soloist  in Julia Adam's Nutcracker. The tutu is made to look like a paper parasol and is always thrilling to see on stage.

The design for Amy Seiwert's White Noise is simple and very effective and flattering.

 Matthew Neenan's Beside Them They Dwell is also one of may favorites. I love how naked the dancers look and the design is very fresh, unlike things I have seen before in ballet.