The main purpose of the thesis is to study the dance costume based on the most essential element of performing arts, 'the moving body' by analyzing the moving body and the features of the costumes, finding the close links between the two subjects with...
The main purpose of the thesis is to study the dance costume based on the most essential element of performing arts, 'the moving body' by analyzing the moving body and the features of the costumes, finding the close links between the two subjects with the aim of establishing the foundation of making dance costumes that best represent the characteristics of the movement and the symbolic images of the performance.
The study was done by conducting advanced research on local and overseas performances, reviewing and observing costume designs, videos, interviews, collections and critic reports. In particular, Twyla Tharp’s biography, “The Creative Habit: Learn and use it for Life” provided me with her insight on collaboration while reviewing ‘In the Upper Room’. Norma Kamali was responsible for the costume design and my past experience working in the fashion design and costume manufacturing provided me with a basis of intangible knowledge when analyzing the performance.
The next step was to review the theoretical background of the moving body and Laban movement features before going into deep analysis of the ‘moving body’ and dance costumes. In addition, I have also searched into the role of dance costumes and the characteristics of the design features which provided the base of finding the relationship between the movement features and costume design features. To find out how the above relationship appears in a real performance I analyzed the moving body and dance costumes in Jean-Christophe Maillot’s ‘Cinderella’, a ballet performance and Twyla Tharp’s ‘In the Upper Room’, a contemporary dance performance. The analysis shows the mutual congeniality between the moving body and costume, as well as the following design related characteristic features that appear on the dance costumes.
Firstly, the moving ‘Body’ relates to the costume texture and line/shape, the moving ‘Effort’ to the costume colors, and the moving ‘Shape’ to the costume line/shape. Secondly, when compared to the fashion costume the dance costume requires that several design features be mutually related, with particular emphasis on the texture, which should be closely related to all the features. Thirdly, the costume space in the ‘moving body’ can be described as the harmonious relationship between the formative costume shape and space as well as the dynamosphere of costume.
By analyzing the mutual congeniality between the moving body and dance costume the study aims to propose a new possibility for the dance costume, which so far has been regarded as a component rather than a separate element in a performance. In addition, the moving body should be regarded as the starting point for design thus paving the way for a more open design when doing research for a more human centric and conceptual fashion costume design.
To conclude, I would like to again emphasize the goal of the study which is to promote the importance of the dance costume to the dancing art, to propose a more efficient framework for the production of the dance costume and hopefully shed some light on other studies related to humanities and clothing such as fashion, clothing psychology, formative art and others.