How much is the meaning of performance costume bound up in the physicality of the performer? How can a costume designer ‘read’ choreography in order to fulfil their role? Is there such a thing as abstract costume? These are all important questions that will be discussed on the first day of our symposium, with the focus lying in the connection between the costume designer, performer, choreographer and the audience.We are proud to present Deborah Landis (current president of The Costume Designer’s Guild) as our keynote speaker. Landis has designed costumes for over twenty Hollywood productions including such blockbusters as Blues Brothers and Indiana Jones. She has also written the first doctoral dissertation in the field of film costume design.
9.15am – 9.45am: Arrival & Registration
9.45am – 10.00am:Nigel West – Course Leader of the BA (Hons) Costume for the Screen and Stage, The Arts Institute at Bournemouth: Introduction to the Institute & Event
10.00am – 11.00am:Deborah Landis - President of The Costume Designer’s Guild, Keynote Speaker
11.15am – 11.45am:Ali Maclaurin - Course Leader for Costume Design and Construction and Theatre Production, Queen Margaret University College Edinburgh
12.00am – 12.30pm:Abigail Hammond – Freelance Costume Designer and Educator, Croydon College, London College of Fashion, Laban Centre, and Wimbledon School of Art
12.45pm – 1.15pm: Fiona Mathers – Senior Teaching Fellow, Performance Design and Production, University of Leeds
1.30pm – 2.30pm: Break for Lunch
2.30pm – 3.00pm:Hilary Baxter – Leader BA (Hons) Costume Design, Wimbledon School of Art
3.15pm – 3.45pm:Emanuele Lugli – Costume Designer and Ph.D. Student at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
4.00pm: Wine & Canapes
Teaching is the focus for the second day of our symposium. The speakers will be discussing the importance of drawing and digital media in costume design, and looking into the various methods for building up student confidence in the costume arena.
The second day’s keynote speaker is Linda Mattock – the award winning costume designer with extensive experience of design practice, education and training. In recent years she has been responsible for the development and delivery of BBC design strategies and industry representation for design standards and continues her own creative practice as an artist and painter.
9.15am – 9.45am:Arrival/Registration for Day Two & Coffee
9.45am – 10.00am:Nigel West – Course Leader of the BA (Hons) Costume for the Screen and Stage, AIB: Welcome to Day Two
10.00am – 10.30am:Susie Hotchkies – Senior Lecturer BA (Hons) (Hons) Fashions Studies & BA (Hons) Costume for Screen and Stage, AIB
10.45am – 11.15am:Donatella Barbieri –MA Costume Design for Performance Course Director – London College of Fashion
11.15 – 11.30 Coffee & Tea
11.30am – 12.00pm:Julia Reeve – Lecturer BA (Hons) Theatre Design, Nottingham Trent University and Fashion and Textile Programmes, De Montfort University
12.15pm – 12.45pm:Anne Curry – Senior Lecturer in Costume Design and Interpretation, Nottingham Trent University
1.00pm – 2.00pm: Break for Lunch
2.00pm – 2.30pm: Seminar choice 1
2.45pm – 3.15pm: Seminar choice 2
3.15pm – 3.30pm: Coffee & Tea
3.30pm – 4.30pm: Linda Mattock - BBC Design Consultant: VISION Manager, Keynote Speaker
4.30pm – 5.00pm: What next..?
2.00pm – 2.30pm and 2.45pm – 3.15pm
Brigid Strowbridge – Pathway Leader BA Developments in Corsetry The Arts Institute at Bournemouth
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Please be advised that the three seminars are running at 2.00pm – 2.30pm and again at 2.45pm – 3.15pm. You can attend two of the three seminars. Please sign up on the morning of Thursday 20th July. Please visit our Design Collection which is housed in the Library. We are currently running a display featuring various costumes and period garments. For further information on other events run by the Enterprise Pavilion, The Arts Institute at Bournemouth, please contact Matthew Desmier, Enterprise Pavilion Operations Manager on 01202 853602 |
Deborah Landis – Keynote Speaker
Deborah Landis will talk about her career and her extensive experience within the industry. Landis has designed costumes for over twenty Hollywood productions including such blockbusters as Blues Brothers and Indiana Jones. She has also written the first doctoral dissertation in the field of film costume design.
Ali Maclaurin - Costume, voice, body: testing costume as generative performance score for extended voice
The
paper will discuss an AHRC funded collaboration between a costume
designer and a performer, specifically an extended voice artist. The
research project, the second undertaken by the pair, aims to push the
boundaries of costume's role in performance creation. It challenges the
received order by allowing the costume designer to begin the
compositional process, giving her free reign to design a costume from
which the performer will compose a new piece of performance. The
specifics are only two –the designer's personal knowledge of the
performer's work and the idea that the piece may be aimed at very young
children. The project examines how the designer makes decisions, how
the costume evolves and what happens when it is handed over to the
performer.
Abigail Hammond - Shapes in space – dance costumes and their story
This paper seeks to establish knowledge of the role of the costume designer practitioner working in the performance art field of contemporary dance, explored through the following questions: What is the collaborative nature of the relationship between the choreographer and the designer? How can the costume designer ‘read’ choreography in order to fulfil their role? What is the role of costume design as mode of non-verbal communication?
Fiona Mathers – Performer / Costume / Audience - An investigation of the possibilities for costume to communicate design ideas and the elements which affect this
This paper will discuss how much costume operates in a different world of interpretation from the other design areas and to what extent the realism of the body and the expectations of clothes are tools or barriers for the designer in creating a different kind of communication. In assessing this it will also consider whether the possible roles of costume are changing with new ideas of the visual elements of performance in general. At a time when styles and ranges of performance and our interpretation of them are changing radically the object is to ask questions rather than necessarily finding definitive answers.
Hilary Baxter - “Anecdote and Attribution” in costume design research
This presentation is of an AHRC funded research project, which looks at the complexities of defining the contribution of a costume designer by comparing existing documentation with a thorough investigation into generating new information on the subject and finally making an informed analysis of the original work, using two case studies.The Research questions are:How can data on the attribution of costume design work contribute to understanding the evolution of the role of the Costume Designer?How have the parameters of costume design been formalized by non-practitioners, and what effect has this had on the misinterpretation of quality in Costume Design? In ‘Some like it Hot’ ( Billy Wilder, 1959) the costume designer’s credit is actually for ‘Miss Monroe’s Gowns by’, but in a recent interview (Channel 4, January 2004) actor Tony Curtis told an anecdote that Orry-Kelly had personally measured him for a costume, implying that the ‘drag’ costumes were also his responsibility. This evidence emerges through an anecdote, the designer died in 1964. All the other close collaborators, Billy Wilder, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Burt Henrikson (wardrobe credit) are also dead however, there is a large amount of recorded material which relates to this film.The second case study is of the film ‘The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the desert’ (Stephen Elliot, 1994) which is used, in this instance to interrogate the practice and achievement of the costume designer to explore how and by whom the parameters of costume design have been formalized and what effect has this had on the general misinterpretation of what Costume Designers do.
Emanuele Lugli - Costume as appearance. A study in the modalities of existence of film costumes
Is the costume designer really the author of the dresses that appear on screen? By conceptualizing film costumes not as objects but as images and by drawing on contemporary theory, this paper argues against this traditional view in favor of collaborative agency.
Linda Mattock – Keynote Speaker
Using examples from drawings and costume designs Linda will talk about her career, contribution to industry and approach to training and education.
Donatella Barbieri - European Collaborative Project
Devising and developing costume based performance in the virtual, real and invented space between two European costume design departments, LCF in London and DAMU in Prague. This paper examines the influence of the Ecole Jacques Lecoq LEM (Laboratoire d’Etude du Mouvement) workshops on the development of costume based live performance through a collaborative process between two groups of students who, though separated by distance and language, aim to create a common language via the exploration of the dynamics of the costumed body in movement within the performance space.
Julia Reeve - Digital media and costume design: learning and teaching strategies
Few would argue that we live in a world where technology is increasingly embedded into our daily lives, more so with each new generation of learners: yet costume design in the UK, both in educational and professional spheres, has been slow to embrace the computer as a design tool.In this presentation, Julia will discuss ways in which Computer Aided Design can be further integrated into Higher Education costume programmes, thereby feeding into professional practice. She will focus on the development of learning and teaching strategies designed to overcome potential barriers to the use of digital media, and the creation of an exciting, reflective and inclusive learning experience.
Anne Curry – Drawing Conclusions: The Importance of Drawing in the Process of Costume Design
In this paper, I adopt a triple research perspective, combining the following roles of: practitioner, teacher, and learner. A triple perspective, allows maximum reflexivity, to explore the importance of drawing as an enduring key skill in multiple contexts. Design and teaching experience both lead me to conclude that drawing is important; it is integral to the process of costume design in both academic and professional design contexts. The process of Costume Design is a complex synthesis of intellect and aesthetics, driven by creative research. Drawing is visual research, which enhances the designers’ self-expression, which can boost self-confidence, whilst improving the quality of information transfer. In addition, I am interested in the quality and integrity of the costume drawing as a potent artefact, which articulates ‘form’ and ‘function’. I think it is acceptable and sometimes essential for there to be ‘several’ drawings, necessary to convey complex design information in the process of costume design.I argue that a basic skill in figurative drawing is essential, because a performer will eventually need to wear the costume design; therefore, an understanding of human body proportion is fundamental to the process of costume design. Essentially, costume design drives from character analysis, which results form in-depth analysis of the play text, libretto, or other basis for performance. My paper develops pedagogic research, and personal learning, which explore traditional ‘formal’ methodologies for freehand drawing; combined with ‘free’ contempory methodologies involving mixed media, derived from the traditional Art and Design Foundation Course curricula model. I engage in debate on issues raised during a discussion I lead, entitled, ‘Visual Methodologies in Costume Design’, as part of the Costume Symposium, ‘Frameworks for subject specific knowledge’, held at Wimbledon School of Art, in July 2005.
Adele Keeley – The challenge of teaching large groups – Using PowerPoint as a practical teaching tool
As Higher Education cohorts grow the teaching methods needed to support students are forever changing. This seminar group is an opportunity to discuss new methods and approaches to deal with this. Adele will set off the discussion with a demonstration on teaching pattern cutting using PowerPoint as a teaching tool. Other examples of teaching methods will also be discussed as members of the group bring with them experiences, good and bad. This hopes to be an interesting, supportive debate.
Graham Cottenden - Peer Assisted Learning
This session will present action research on enhancing the HE learning environment for students through peer assisted learning in an experiential curriculum. The aim of this research is to embed the skills of coaching and mentoring and facilitate situations where students become role models for one another, thus enhancing the student experience. This research investigates how student retention and success are maximised, and influences the widening participation agenda, by developing links and working with the local community.
Brigid Strowbridge - Developments in corsetry
Brigid Strowbridge’s talk will be on the development of her Corsetry teaching utilisingresearchfrom a number of the smallercostume museums.
Susie Hotchkies – ‘Costume: metaphorically speaking’ – How does the role of costume design represent and interpret the narrative of cultural discourse?
This paper will assess, through a specific selection of cinematic scenes, the central role of screen costume. Costume can, and most emphatically does, “speak volumes”, thereby revealing a whole vocabulary of meanings which convey to the cinematic audience such ideals as - location and the placing of time, religious conservatism and liberalism, notions of respectability, sexuality, and more… Through discussion of a permutation of design precedence, how the visual language of Costume is pivotal and aligned to the narrative will be determined.