PNB's Coppélia Goes Couture
Costumes from Coppélia: Spinner (center), (from the top, clockwise) Waltz of the Golden Hours, Wedding, Prayer and Villager
Almost as captivating as the choreography, technique and pure, bad-ass athleticism of the ballet are the costumes. The pointe shoes, flying saucer tutus, and intricately detailed corseted bodices are undeniably captivating; they take us to a whimsical world of fantasy and imagination. As talented as the principal dancers onstage at Pacific Northwest Ballet, we learn, are the ladies and gentlemen behind the sewing machines.
We know, you're surprised: Keebler-like elves don't make the costumes in their magical tree cottage—so were we. But in a world where master textile guilds are near extinction by the means of mass-producing sweatshops and cheap, out-sourced labor, the costume shop at Pacific Northwest Ballet is, indeed, a little bit magical. Enter: Larae Theige Hascall, Pacific Northwest Ballet's Costume Shop Manager since 1987, and her team of (currently) 30 nimble fingered seamstresses, drapers, pattern-makers, fabric dyers, milliners and experts of everything textiles. When we visited a few weeks ago, the shop was spilling over into three rooms (bursting at the seams, shall we say?), the in-house costume production team bustling over the upcoming production dubbed the 'happiest ballet in existence', Coppélia.
"It all starts over here, with the Bible," says Theige Hascall, as she leads us over to view a triple-ring binder full of watercolor sketches from Italian fashion designer and set and costume expert, Roberta Guidi di Bagno, fabric swatches and hundreds of pages of character descriptions and wardrobe reference notes of the Balanchine version (1974) of Coppélia. (Seattle Times interview with di Bagno here).
Coppélia's wedding gown
With a few functional requests from Artistic Director, Peter Boal, the costume shop is ready to pump out 125 costumes, from extravagant wedding gowns to your average Medieval folk-person garb. (Think 125 is tough? Sleeping Beauty is 190 costumes, with over 900 individual pieces!) But with such competent seamstresses, and durable, won’t-wrinkle-when-it’s-tossed-on-the-floor-in-a-thirty-second-wardrobe-change fabrics like polyester and nylon materials, most of the costumes are maintained and reused over and over again. The annual Nutcracker wardrobe was last produced in 1983, so for 27 years hundreds of dancers have tip-toed about in the Costume Shop’s original collection.
For new, large-scale ballet productions like Coppélia, the costume shop is consumed with constructing and altering garments for almost an entire year. While the choreography is acrobatic and theatrical, (to borrow from Amy Mikel's review) there is less actual dancing than there is in Balanchine's other works. As a result, much of our focus is on the splendor and pure magical awesomeness of di Bagno's fantastical set design and fairy-landesque fashions. From the sea of pink tutu-ed corps de ballet of 10-14 year-old ballet students, kooky inventors and their collection of delightfully decorative dolls, and a sparkly fairy tale wedding scene, the wardrobe and visual impact of this production ranks right up there with the wonders of the Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland.
Through June 13th // McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer Street // $25 - $160 (206-441-2424 or www.pnb.org)
