How ballet costumes are made - Dance Saturday
Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,
Today, I'm going to talk you through another couple videos that I watched from the Royal Opera House. However, this time, it's not necessarily going to be about dances but actually costumes.
I feel like people really underestimate the power that a costume can give to a performance and I think that's partly because we're so used to costumes being tacky and not very well made. The word costume itself kind of connotes your thoughts to something like Halloween which isn't really the full picture when you think of dance. When I've done dance shows, my costumes haven't been anything particularly special because I was mostly asked to where a lot of blacks and whites and it was all mostly about uniformity. However, when it comes to big dance companies like the Royal Ballet, it's really important that the costumes are of good quality so that the whole performance is striking enough to the audience who's paid to watch it. Therefore, obviously, a lot more time and effort gets put into making the costumes outstanding.
Let's take the production Jewels for example. As the title goes, you have different types of jewels for the show and the costume has to portray this. You have the beautiful, white, articulate diamonds and you have the feminine green of the emeralds, as well as the the striking red colour from the rubies. This is all portrayed very clearly in the costumes that they use in the production. The flowy light green skirt is used for the emeralds, the red leotards are used to show the striking nature of the rubies, and the more structured white tutu is used to represent the jewel of choice, the diamond. When you're dancing, you can't speak to the audience so you have to be able to communicate in a different way and one of the ways that they do this is through the costumes. I love how the Jewels production looks because the costume design is just so on point. Not only do the designers derive their ideas from the original works of Barbara Karinska and Balanchine, they also portray the vibrant atmosphere perfectly with their costumes. It is easy to tell from the design that this production is very much a celebration of dance!
Royal Opera House
Another one of my favourite costumes has got to be the Sleeping Beauty's Lilac Fairy. When you think of a ballet costume you think of glitter and sparkles and this costume very much encompasses that. You have the dark purple underskirt of the tutu with the red top skirt over it. You have the sparkly, jeweled bodess with crinoline vines and velvet leaves spiralling up it. You've also got the white lilac and the pink and purple lilacs covering the whole of the costume, hence the name, the Lilac Fairy. Like many of the designs from the Royal Ballet, this costume dates back to the original designers who made it and each year the costume is tailored to the dancer who wears it. I really like this costume because it brings the element of fantasy to the design and that very much helps to bring the story alive in the piece.
Royal Opera House
Overall, costumes are important in any dance because it's an easy way to communicate the message of the dance to the audience. Without the continued efforts of the people behind the scenes, we wouldn't have the amazing productions from the Royal Ballet that we do have and for that we should be continually grateful!
What's your favourite costume from the Royal Ballet? Let me know in the comments below and I'll be sure to reply to them. I ♡ hearing from you!
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See you next time,
Bye,
XOX, Juliette
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