workshop and performance
project
Unexpected dresses for undefined ceremonies
||||||The laboratory costume performance
The recycling manifesto
I belong to a family of costume designers. Though I was happy with the needle in my hands I never touched a sewing machine until I arrived to Amsterdam in 2004 and I met the sailing theatre company the ship of fools (www.azart.org). Their way of living and creating art out of any institutional support touched me. I initiated this activity understanding the costume making legacy left by my father Trinidad who died besides me in September 2002. I understand now his craft passed to me.
With my first sewing machine; a strong Cooler from the sixties, I started to work on the daily leftovers of Waterloo Plein market in Amsterdam; recomposing and recycling old or unwanted outfits into something I came to consider beautiful by the mere fact of giving new life to the waste. Here I found space for inspiration, where I started to play the relation of the person with the outfit and consequently with the audience. Following two years of pure self-experimentation and studies with different costume designers, in September 2007 I presented in Amsterdam Badhuis Theater the first Costume Performance of an ongoing series. Under the premise of unique outfits, the divinity appears for me in the sense of the embodiment of the second skin by a person for whom it has been tailor made for and the magic impossibility of repetition. This together with the psychological influence that a costume has on a person and the consequent communicative line provided by it.
On the other hand, this idea of recycling, transformation and reutilization, drew me to ponder on ethic/political considerations. Analyzing the present sense of consume, waste and beauty, capitalism disease and excess expenditure, as well as my drive to revitalize my performing frame, ultimately led me to embrace such craftsmanship.
Making costumes is embracing people in the distance.
Javier Murugarren. www.murugalas.com
LABORATORY COSTUME PERFORMANCE
The primal idea of this laboratory is to address costume design technique and directly integrate it into development of performance parameters such as physicality, performativity and presence in the form of solo actions.
The laboratory will be divided in two parts:
1. A quick overview in the use an posibilities of sewing machines as well as simple design tips will be given at the begining of the workshop in order to give the participants a minimum autonomy to proceed by themselves.
We will also investigate the potential of colors, tissues and forms and the hidden fascinating psychology these elements have.
2. During the second part of the day we will investigate the relation between the item in creation process and the performer in research. Here we will try to achieve two parallel dynamics where the development of the costume will affect the perception of the performer.
At this point, the introduction of movement proposals, actions, discussions, readings, and individual coached investigations will give us the possibility of deepen into the imagery, form or antiform of our trip; always with the goal of achieving a plastic coherence. At the end of the laboratory we will review the material created by each participant in the form of a informal series of solo presentations.
Time:
from the 4th to the 8th of April 2011 everyday from 12-15pm (break)
and from 16 to 18pm
