Masks by Berthe Fortin for a performance by Adam James for Jerwood Open Forest 2014
My subject for this practice-based research is the role of materiality when making costume, and performativity through gesture such as putting on a mask, in the creation of ritual.
My interest in this subject was initiated when, as a MA student in Costume for Performance at London College of Fashion, I was introduced to the “revolutionary concept of embedded narrative into costume and the construction for performance working outwards from it” as formulated by my then course director Donatella Barbieri.
Since I graduated, I have worked mainly in the field of site-specific design-led performance projects, notably with the award winning company dreamthinkspeak, whose emphasis on scenography as part of the devising process has been a major influence. I have developed my costume craft through material experimentation, and through collaborations with practitioners. Also, my projects with non-professionals have contributed to my interest in costume design as collaborative work for the creation of performances.
In the UK, the tendency, in design-lead performance art, is to relegate costume design to a consideration after the devising process. As costume designer, I find this process frustrating, due to the rupture that exists between the costume design and the creation of the performance.
To address this issue I propose to look for the meanings contained in the act of making costume by identifying rituals that emerge from this craft. By doing this research I plan on achieving the following two aims; to demonstrate the potential centrality of costume design in the devising process of performance through costume craft and the involvement of a collectivity; and to formulate an integrated and correlated material-based costume and performance devising method.
To achieve my aims, I set myself the following six objectives: to investigate rituals through the traditions of mask in Balinese dance and the dressing in Nô Theatre; to examine the ways of making costume objects in pre-industrial times, and identify meanings; to identify meanings that emerge through transformation of material into costume; to discern the performance embedded in the costume that is being fabricated; to develop a material-based costume design method to create performance through craft; to produce and exhibit costume objects and costume-based performance(s).
I will use theory to inform and guide my research and experimentation. To develop my hypothesis I will collect documentaton through reading of text and theses, consultation of costume and performance archives, artefacts, and interviews of practitioners. Workshops to involve participants in the costume and performance process will enable me to address specific areas and to test the hypothesis.
The results of my research will be presented as performance(s), filmed or live, a related exhibition and written thesis.