Principal Artist Yosvani has danced with both Jeune Ballet de France and Ballet de l’Opéra National de Paris, but found much to enjoy in The Australian Ballet’s French-inspired double bill Paris Match. It was a performance made all the more special because his mum was in the audience from Cuba.

Well, opening night of Paris Match has finally happened. We did it!

With Stanton Welch’s Divergence, you’ve got to be very precise and in sync, so everybody – well, I speak for myself – was worried they would have a blank in the middle of the stage. In this ballet you have to do all the turns and tours to the right, and I’m the only dancer in the whole company that turns to the left. I’m also at the front of the line, so even more pressure! Thankfully I didn’t end up in the orchestra pit … ha ha.

Suite en blanc, the first ballet of this double bill, also went well. I love Suite and danced it eleven years ago in France. On opening night this week, I performed the Mazurka. I had such a good time out there, despite being a bit tired after two rehearsals the previous day. The rest of the cast was fantastic – no reason to envy the Paris Opera Ballet. Australian ballet dancers rock!

Paris Match runs until 4 July in Melbourne

Yosvani Ramos in Stanton Welch’s Divergence. Photography Jim Mcfarlane

Danseur, choreographer and raconteur Serge Lifar (1905 – 1986) made two visits to Australia in his lifetime, first in 1939 as part of the Ballets Russes tours, then later in 1981 to stage Suite en blanc for The Australian Ballet.

Suite en blanc will be performed as part of the Paris Match season in Melbourne 24 June – 4 July.

Serge Lifar pictured in his ballet Icare
Image scanned from an edition of ‘Special Danse’ 1969, signed and given to The Australian Ballet by Serge Lifar in 1981.

Vanessa Leyonhjelm worked as a fashion designer in Melbourne, New York and Paris in the ‘80s and early ‘90s but Divergence was her very first commission for dance. Her designs – the sculptural VacForm bras, the cylindrical tutus, the body con all-in-ones – both subverted and celebrated the history of ballet costume. We talk to Vanessa about her industrial revolution.

You said a few years ago that designing costumes for ballet is the closest thing to haute couture in Australia.
It absolutely is. You have a workroom that will to bend over backwards to do everything that you need and everything that you envisage down to the most minute detail. It’s wonderful.

Stanton Welch said he wanted the dancers to look “like Vogue models”. What kind of brief did he give you for the costumes?
His brief was that they should be very high fashion. I took that away and thought, “How can I make this fashionable today, and fashionable forever?”

Was it a collaborative process?
He gave me a brief that described the type of costumes he wanted for every movement of the music; and also that the changes were very fast; that the bra piece would stay on right through, except for the pas de deux where it’s impossible to keep that bra on; and that he wanted a very stiff tutu, like the Russian tutu. But I didn’t want it to look like a stiff Russian-wired tutu, I wanted it to look a little different. So I went to industrial materials. It was the only sort of mesh that I could find that would tremble and do everything a tutu does, but could still be pulled off and thrown into the air.

The tutu is such a commanding emblem of ballet, coming with so much history; so many associations. Was it an emblem that you enjoyed subverting?
I had a lot of sleepless nights, and did a lot of drawings for different tutus, but in the I end chose what was the simplest and the best. It was only a matter of finding mesh that would do what we wanted. I kept thinking, “Something like fly-wire, but not wire. Something that’s pliable”. Then we found this plastic mesh that’s used in air-conditioning as insulation.

It’s probably just long enough now that we can look back at ’90s fashion objectively, and though it’s often maligned as a decade, there were lots of interesting things happening: deconstructionism, underwear-as-outwear, clothes that were sexy without the aggressiveness of so much ‘80s fashion. Was it an interesting period to be working as a designer?
I tried to make Divergence very modern, but very classical at the same time. I wanted the tutu to do everything the tutu does, but to be as simple and as modern as possible. I didn’t really look to fashion when I was doing it; I just looked to doing something that would be modern for as long as possible.

Which designers do you enjoy these days?
I’ve always like Gaultier for his haute couture. Since I was young I loved Franco Ferraro because he was so sculptural. As designers from way back, Dior and also Charles James – he considered his designs from above and from the sides; from every angle they had to look fantastic. I always thought that was such a fascinating way to work, and to work on the round as well, not on flat patterns. I have done that as much as possible. Also ‘60s Paco Rabanne. Just more sculptural designers. It’s easier to make a piece and just add, and add, and add to it, but it’s difficult to do a really beautiful shape, and it’s difficult to cut really well. I think people who know how to cut really well do it, and people who don’t just embellish a bit more.

Divergence returns to the stage later this month alongside Suite en blanc in the double bill Paris Match. Melbourne: 24 June – 4 July.

Justin Summers in the 1994 photo shoot for Stanton Welch‘s Divergence.

Divergence returns to the stage later this month alongside Suite en blanc in the double bill Paris Match. Melbourne: 24 June – 4 July.

We’ve got two double passes to give away to the dress rehearsal of Paris Match on Tuesday 23 June at 7pm. If you’d like them to be yours, email hello@behindballet.com First in, best dressed!

*Update – tickets have been claimed. Congrats to the lucky winners!*

After ten years of mending, recycling and general making-do, post-WWII women weren’t expecting Christian Dior’s 1947 New Look. Borrowing from the decadence of ballet, Dior brazenly updated the female silhouette and reintroduced luxury to a deprived population. The hand-span waistlines and bouffant Romantic-length skirts paid homage to boned bodices of the Renaissance courts and Barbara Karinska’s powder-puff tutus. Dior insisted on appliqué, beading and embroidery, luxuries that had only been seen on ballet stages for over a decade.

When Dior presented his New Look to traders around Europe and America he faced savage criticism. Fabrics were scarce and economists frowned upon home consumption. The Board of Trade forbade Alison Settle, then editor of British Vogue, to mention Dior in her pages. It was feared that Dior’s New Look would encourage impossible demands, indulgence and social revolution. Looking back on this time Dior said: “War had passed out of sight, and there were no other wars on the horizon. What did the weight of my sumptuous materials, my heavy velvets and brocades matter? When hearts were light, mere fabrics could not weigh the body down.” Dior breathed the glamour of ballet into his New Look collection and brought decadence to the people.

Image: Kirsty Martin in Stephen Baynes’ Raymonda. Costumes by Anna French. Photography Justin Smith

Paris Match, a double bill of tutu delights, plays in in Melbourne from 24 June until 4 July.