With the world premiere of Infinity taking place in Melbourne in only a couple of weeks, Anna Sutton spoke to costume designer Jennifer Irwin about her collaborations with Graeme Murphy and Stephen Page for The Narrative of Nothing and Warumuk: in the dark night.

“I love working with both of them and they’re both very different,” Jennifer says of the two choreographic veterans as she shows me the “forbidden fish” costume for Warumuk – an iridescent dress that twinkles in a wave of oxidised metallic sequins.

“The costumes I’ve done for Graeme have always been more abstract and contemporary, and more fashion, stripped back, whereas Stephen’s are always Aboriginal-based – still abstract – but with a story behind it.”

In Stephen Page’s Warumuk – in the dark night, audiences will witness the transient brilliance of Jennifer’s costumes streaking across the stage in a journey through Aboriginal astronomy – a story told in seven vignettes. The Australian Ballet and Bangarra Dance Theatre have collaborated in the past, but this is the first time the two companies have partnered to perform an Indigenous narrative.

Jennifer’s designs for Warumuk are painterly and sculptural. Take the costumes for the Julpan Boys, who evoke dusk. “They wear burnished colours accompanied by sculptural reptilian structures. These are made from a moulding plastic overlayed with a plastic mesh (for flexibility), then painted,” she says. Elsewhere, a calico design, whose patterns were cut away from behind and then painted, give an intricate, coral-like effect. That design will be worn by one of the seven sisters to tell the Aboriginal story of the constellation called Pleiades in Western astronomy.

Jennifer explains that designing for Indigenous dance is unique because of the cultural protocols that must be observed. “Bangarra Dance [has its] own rules, such as use of colour and respecting dancers’ totems.” In Warumuk, nine male dancers in woven skirts will dance among suspended clusters of coiled, feathery rope. The design is inspired by Morning Star poles, which are used ceremonially in Yolngu culture.

Rather than trying to reconcile the classical with Aboriginal elements, Jennifer says she “doesn’t go there”, preferring to delve into abstraction. “The main challenge is following the protocols. It’s collaborative, it’s about putting Stephen’s vision forward and because I’ve worked with him for so long I understand his aesthetic, but I do have to follow rules.”

There are practical considerations, too, that Jennifer has faced in creating the dizzying array of costumes for Warumuk. “With Bangarra it’s always ‘less is better’. Because the dancers always wear so much ochre and the choreography is always very grounded and on the floor, you’ve really got to design around what you can’t use rather than what you can use. The floor becomes very dirty and the costumes get destroyed. They have to be washed after each use. The floor almost becomes part of the costumes or the costume becomes part of the floor.”

The set and lighting design for Warumuk were an integral part of Jennifer’s approach. The elegantly sparse set, which suggests the night sky, formed the backdrop for her costumes. “The set uses Aboriginal images and big dots. I’ve got the possibility of putting the dancers in the most interesting costumes because it’s a big black box filled with beautiful sculptural pieces that Jake [Jacob Nash, the set designer] has designed. If you’re in a big black box it’s great to use materials that reflect light – shiny fabrics that will be pleated and painted into.”

A costume for the Evening Star vignette featuring luminous layers of flesh-coloured net, beaded lace and silk chiffon reflects this approach, as do the costumes for a school of fish that will appear in silver metallic knitted dresses and sequin-and-rope embellished helmets created by The Australian Ballet’s milliners.

For Graeme Murphy’s The Narrative of Nothing, Jennifer journeys further into the unknown. “Graeme’s work is more about the body and abstraction, whereas Stephen is about stories, so they’re totally different. With The Narrative of Nothing the set has a lot of lights, so it’s really about body form and silhouette. There are 15 dancers in Graeme’s piece, and their costumes are individually painted artworks that are all about body and shape.”

Jennifer’s main inspiration came from listening to The Narrative of Nothing’s score, Brett Dean’s Fire Music, a piece dedicated to the victims of Victoria’s Black Saturday Bushfires. However, Jennifer emphasises that The Narrative of Nothing is not about fire. Her illustrations, which formed the basis for the designs, are drawn in bold tubular strokes in a spectrum of cool greys. This artwork, which was scanned and digitised onto fabric, is a study in human anatomy. “The brief was to design bodystockings that are abstract and unique and that would complement the lines of the body in the choreographic vocabulary. I did a lot of drawings and Graeme and I discussed them and which ones he liked. The pieces were then overprinted with a silver dot matrix with a design incorporated into the screen print, which highlights the muscle form.”

Set and lighting are again integral to her choice of reflective costumes: in The Narrative of Nothing we will see dancers aglow in a “vast open space surrounded by intense light boxes”.

Jennifer says that the freedom of designing for abstract ballet is not without its own set of challenges. “What’s great about an abstract ballet is that you can go anywhere, but at the same time it can be restricting because you don’t know where to stop.

“I’m really lucky because I’ve been designing for Graeme for 30 years and Stephen for 20 – which means I have relative artistic freedom in designing for their work.”

You can see Jennifer’s designs as part of the Infinity program, which opens in Melbourne on 24 February and in Sydney on 5 April. Tickets on sale now.

Read more about Infinity

All photography in this post by Lynette Wills

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“The world will be a little less beautiful now that we don’t have Kristian to redesign it for us.”

David McAllister, Artistic Director of The Australian Ballet

Kristian Fredrikson was one of the world’s most extraordinary theatre designers. Here at The Australian Ballet we had the great fortune to have several of our productions designed by him, notably the Graeme Murphy blockbusters Nutcracker – The Story of Clara and Swan Lake. We also treasure the charming (and sinister!) confections he dreamed up for Coppélia and the magical, Eastern-tinged world he created for Stanton Welch’s The Sleeping Beauty.

The Kristian Fredrikson Scholarship for Design in the Performing Arts was inaugurated as an ongoing memorial to Kristian (who died in 2005). It’s a $10,000 travelling scholarship intended to assist an Australian designer or maker to study overseas. More about the scholarship here.

Meanwhile, we remember Kristian’s incomparable, sumptuous, eccentric work in this photo gallery of his designs for our company. Here’s hoping his memorial scholarship helps talent like this emerge into the world.

If you’d like to examine Fredrikson designs in more detail, the DVDs of Nutcracker – The Story of Clara, Swan Lake and Coppélia are available from our online shop.

One of the great joys of The Merry Widow is its extravagant designs. Recently, at a function of The Australian Ballet Society, our Wardrobe Production Manager Michael Williams showed off a fetching cross-section of The Merry Widow’s costumes and shared some of the stories behind them (featuring broken heels, bleach and bumblebees).

The Merry Widow opens in Melbourne on 23 June

The Australian Ballet Society regularly holds events offering its members behind-the-scenes insights. Its next function, The Merry Widow Revisited, will feature past stars of The Merry Widow in conversation.

We’ve got five double passes to the Wednesday 29 June 1.30pm performance of The Merry Widow to give away. If you’d fancy them, just leave a comment telling us about your favourite Merry Widow moment (ballet or operetta, we’re not picky). Competition closes 5pm Monday 20 June, Melbourne time. Winners will be notified by email.

Iconic artists from Pablo Picasso to Georges Braque turned Russes costumes into living sculptures. Exhibition Assistant Simeran Maxwell points to Henri Matisse’s ‘Costume for a mourner’.

“It’s very striking – the way it’s so angular”, she says. “(Henri) Matisse is a draftsperson and you can see he got very hands-on, painting directly onto the fabric.” Describing the thrilling design for Le Chant du Rossignol, Matisse said, “They’re like a painting, only with colours that move”.

The most striking designs do at times belie troubled waters in terms of production. Leon Bakst’s ‘Costume for the Bluebird’ from Sergei Diaghilev’s The Sleeping Princess is a relic from a production so extravagant that it resulted in bankruptcy.

Three hundred extraordinarily beautiful costumes and sets were not enough to save the production from alienating its audience, who were displeased with the staging of such a drawn-out classical ballet. It was one of the few Diaghilev ballets that misjudged what the audience wanted.

Bakst produced garments that are very wearable: he used non-constrictive bodices and favoured loose fits. Garments such as the Scheherazade harem pants and caftans were more than just a source of amusement – they channelled the spirit of the times in a dazzling mixture of opulence and athleticism. The costumes for The Buffoon by Michel Larionov, on the other hand, were so cumbersome that ballerinas threatened to strike.

Fifty new costumes have been restored, some to untarnished glory, while others cling to a more fragile state.

Before-and-after illustrations and untreated pieces on display teach us much about the art of conservation in the process. Maxwell paints a clear picture of the challenges faced. “Some pieces needed to have all their embellishments removed in order for them to be cleaned, while some of the silk costumes can’t be washed because the dyes aren’t fixed. There are mould problems and details like gelatin sequins are troublesome.”

‘Costume for a squid’, designed by Natalia Goncharova for Sadko, took nine months to stitch back together. Head of Conservation Debbie Ward worked with conservator Micheline Ford to restore the ultramarine silk-and-gold lamé dress to its former glory.

The conservation process extends to the staging of the exhibition, with lighting done in house by Tui Tahi. “He has spotlighted each costume with appropriate light levels so the light is not harsh enough to degrade the fabrics but is bright enough to make the costumes sparkle.”

Ballets Russes: the art of costume continues until 20 March 2011 at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.

Image: Léon Baskt Tunic from costume for the Blue God c 1912 from Le Dieu Bleu
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1987

From the very first scene, in which Madame Butterfly stands centre stage with billowing fabric banners radiating outwards, towards the wings, the poignancy of her story is established. Peter, one of the dance world’s most experienced and revered designers, is renowned for his beautiful and comfortable costumes which enable the dancers to move unencumbered by stiff bodices or heavy skirts. However, in Madame Butterfly, it is Peter’s ability to express the delicacy of women and the masculinity of men that could be the most successful aspect of his designs. Sculptural black headdresses worn by the Japanese men might have been plucked out of a Philip Treacy showroom, whereas Butterfly’s girlfriends wear flowers in their hair so delicate it is as though each young woman has been sprinkled with cherry blossoms. The arch of each geisha’s gauzy fan merely highlights the steeliness of the men’s swords. The inky black hues of the dominating Japanese males seem only to illuminate the pathos of Butterfly’s story, as she floats through each movement veiled in impossibly light silks.

For a dancer, the routine of stepping out of ragged practice gear and into a costume can be a moment when he or she feels inside the skin of the character. This process is even more important when the dancer is crossing cultural divisions and centuries of history. Vicki Attard, the creator of the role of Cio Cio San, remembers that Peter’s costumes “really did assist in helping me feel the Japanese authenticity of the role, and, as the fabrics and designs didn’t weigh me down, it helped me create the ethereal and weightless illusion imperative for Cio Cio San.” Those flimsy and silky fabrics that give the appearance of weightlessness come with considerable disadvantages. Of the 170 costumes making their way onto the lithe backs of the dancers this season, most will need constant mending. The original cut of the kimono is not always pirouette-friendly, so with each tear of a hem comes gentle re-stitching. The costumes have been tugged at, tripped on, and handled by numerous men dancing the roles of Pinkerton and Goro. Michael and his team are constantly re-dying kimonos and then bleeding other colours in, letting down trousers, and meticulously re-applying tassels and trims to various collars and cuffs. The work requires patience and commitment, and an eye for detail.

Madame Butterfly, Michael believes, is best performed when the dancers and audience are in an intimate space. Not only because of the lack of expansive group dancing, but because the beauty and authenticity of Peter’s designs are most effective when the audience feels close to Butterfly’s story. Peter’s bubble baths and chocolates must have left quite an impression on him. The frothiness of the dresses and the rich hues of the robes, combine to portray a ballet that is visually both light and dark, beautiful yet somber, and undeniably mesmeric.

Madame Butterfly plays in Melbourne 25 February – 9 March 2011, Adelaide 18 – 23 March 2011 and Sydney 7 – 27 April 2011.

In today’s guest post for The Design Files, we explore The Australian Ballet’s formidable button collection.

Delicate, engraved mother-of-pearl buttons adorn the Columbine costume from Peter Wright’s The Nutcracker while the over-the-top Punchinello suit from Coppélia has buttons of cut stone with angles that perfectly catch the light on stage. But are buttons really important on costumes viewed from a distance by audiences, and, if there are buttons on a costume, are they used as buttons? Read more on The Design Files