Drawing with the Body and Cloth

This chapter focuses on the development of a practice led research project that extends my ongoing exploration of design methods for clothing in performance at the intersection of fashion and performance practices. It responds to the fact that costume design and specifically costume design for contemporary dance is often applied to a specific choreography as opposed to being central to the development of the performance and communication itself.

By investigating the relationship between visuality and physicality in fashion and dance it points towards developed experiential and embodied methods of designing clothing for dance. The research focus on the idea of symbiotic development of clothing design and choreography in response to interpreted meaning drawn from a painting A Detail from The Tempest by Peder Balke, about 1862 in the National Gallery London. The methodology explores the idea of drawing and sketching physically with the body and cloth to inform the design and production of clothing centered physical performance and a short film.

This practice led design process simultaneously develops design and movement in a responsive dialogue between designer and dancer within the gallery and in response to the painting’s inherent themes, emotional and visual narratives. The work addresses the role of narrative in design and performance, seeking to extend a dynamic, felt and experiential engagement with clothing as opposed to a particular visual or linear narrative. Through the designer and dancers experiential understanding of the body and clothing in and through movement, it exposes how clothing can be implicit in the conceptualisation, development and communication process.