Tim Harbour’s Halcyon began with a single image: a goddess, transformed into a bird, flying like an arrow into a storm. Tim enlisted designer Alexis George to recreate his visions on the ballet stage with a unique collection of danceable, period-style costumes. Martyn Pedler caught up with Alexis to talk about how she began designing costumes for the new ballet.

When Tim first told you the Halcyon story, did images immediately start to turn in your head?
It was actually quite immediate. Especially when the narrative is set in a particular time and place. Greek gods have such a striking visual image, so that was a really great starting point for me.

Tim said that he gathered a folder of images that inspired him during the initial stages of the creative process. Did he bring those to you as well?
Yes, that’s correct. He had a few paintings of the Halcyon goddess and her lover Ceyx. In particular, Tim liked the way the wind swirled the fabric, and the movement that was in the painting.

Is there an example of how you interpreted one of those images into your costumes?
Initially I guess it was more about capturing the feeling and mood of the painting. I did some further research on Zeus and I pulled out some particular design lines from the images I found – though they’re not in the final designs. Research in those initial stages is really important: starting with something, and then moving on from there.

What’s the most exciting stage of this process? Is it the initial brainstorming, the research, or when it begins to take a more definite shape?
Every stage is fantastic, but I think it’s when you start seeing the two-dimensional drawings turn into three-dimensional life on the bodies. That’s quite an amazing feeling. It can be really nerve-wracking; you don’t really know if it’s going to work. Something can look amazing on paper but not on the body. The most exciting part is probably finding the fabrics that speak of the design, and getting that onto the body.

I hadn’t thought of that. So, not only is there the initial step from the paper to the object, there’s another step as it’s put onto the dancer …
Absolutely. A lot can change then, particularly in these designs for Halcyon. I’ve done a lot of cut-outs on the body, with lines that follow the contours of the body really closely for the most flattering look. On paper, I’ve drawn something that I think will be flattering, but I actually need to finish the designs on the body. Kerry, the cutter at The Australian Ballet, is going to create a ‘white’ – what we call a ‘trial’ – to put on the dancer, and then we’ll draw on the dancer’s body where the lines are most flattering to their shape. Designs continue all the way up to opening night, really. There are always little changes.

Has there been a particular challenge that’s come with working on this ballet?
Tim challenged me a lot in the design stages, which was really exciting, because he was still developing things in his head. I kind of developed the designs with him, and he kept pushing me to go further and further in different directions. I’m glad we came up with something that works really beautifully together. But we would have never have got there if he didn’t travel that path. So the design stage was quite a challenge to achieve something we both liked and that fit the design aesthetic, and that was something new as well. It’s quite difficult to recreate the leotard! I had to think outside the box a little bit.

Are you used to people coming to you with more of a concrete idea about the costumes?
I think the difference definitely lies between dance and theatre. In theatre, or opera, you always start with a script or a score. But with dance – especially works like Halcyon, which is newly commissioned – we were all there from step one. As a designer, that’s the way I love to work. You really feel like you can contribute to the overall show through design.

Are there sometimes designs you come up with that you think would be amazing, but know that dancers could never dance in?
Definitely. You’ve got to consider the movement, how light something is, whether it stretches with the body, and what sort of fabric it is. They’re such hard-wearing costumes and get put through a lot. There’s the Melbourne season, and then the Sydney season, so everything has to be made from high-quality fabrics. The Australian Ballet has an incredible wardrobe department and they can produce anything, really. If I came to them with a design that seems impossible to move in, they would somehow make it moveable.

Edge of night plays in Melbourne and Sydney in August and November