Competition 2015-2016 Costuming

Ballet Ouest asked me to create a few costume for the 2015-16 Competition team, here are most of them:

 

Picture by Maaike Sears

Competition 2015-16

Tijuana – Contemporary, choreography by Veronique Giasson

·       Platinum Award and Special Judges Award for Innovation and Choreography (Candance)

·       Gold Award (Dance Starz)

·       Emerald Award and third place in Category (Bravissimo)

The music was the inspiration for this one! Veronique asked for something Mexican inspired with a splash of Orange… some flowy pants, but not too flowy to interfere with floor work and a crop top were the requirement. Mary Ellen helped out with this one and we even got a Costume mention at 1 competition! The girls looked great and did great too. We used Jalie Pattern # 3026 modified into a croptop.

Picture by Maaike Sears

 

Just A Dance- Ballet, Choreography by Ora Kozlov

 

·       Platinum Award (Candance)

·       Gold Award (Dance Starz)

·       Emerald Award, First Place in Category (twice) and special Judges Award with invitation to the Showcase (Bravissimo)

Just a Dance needed ….just a costume! Well Ms. Ora knew she wanted a tutu for these little ballerinas and I had just the fabric to do them. In blue they went with white tulle. It is based on Jalie’spattern #2915 for the leotard with tulle attached to them. I added the plate instead of the bodice overlap from the pattern. They did wonderful on stage and even won a bursary at a competition.

Picture by Maaike Sears

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tea Party – Choreography by Claude Caron, Costumes by Marie St-Amour and Myself

Picture by Maaike Sears

·       Platinum Award – Overall production Award and Overall Costume Award ( Candance)

·       First Place Uber Gold in Category, 2 special judges Awards- Overall Choreography Award and Overall Costume Award ( Dance Starz)

·       Emerald Award – Special Judges mention for “Mise en scene théatrale inventique et festive” ( Bravissimo) 

I love this piece! It is part of our Alice! Production and it was presented at different competitions in Quebec and it did amazing! The first time it was presented, my mentor, Marie St-Amour, had designed all the main characters: Alice, the Caterpillar, the Tweedles, the Doormouse, The Cheshire cat and she had used existing costumes to make the rest of the tea party guests. A great amount of fascinator hats were made under Marie’s watchful eye that season. For this competition, I reused her main characters (minus the cat. That costume was for a younger dancer so I had to make a new older version) and reworked all the guests. I had to make more hats and decided that all the guests would be in short tutus to really show off all of our dancer’s great feet and legs. We knew this production would do well in competition but did not realize that costume wise, the school would be awarded a really nice (and BIG!) trophy.

Picture by Maaike Sears

On a personal side note, my daughter danced as a Tweedle, as she had done at the school’s show, and I had to paint both the Tweedle’s pointe shoes to match the costume. I used a regular spray pain in blue and red that I applied in thin layers and let it dry overnight, works every time!















 

Emergency – Jazz, Choreography Nicky Sperounes

·       Gold Award (Candance)

·       High Silver Award (Dance Starz)

·       Ruby Award (Bravissimo)

This is Jazz!

Picture by Maaike Sears

give me flash and give me fun! The fabric was chosen by Nicky and she had shown me pictures of things she liked so I came up with this design. We wanted to do crop tops but did not want them to look too “undressed” so I opted to make them high waist shorts. Both these pieces are modified Jalie patterns. # 3247 for the short and # 2792 for the tops were the starting points. Mary Ellen helped design this costume.

Bossa Baby - Jazz, Choreography Nicky Sperounes

·       Gold Award (Candance)

·       High Silver Award (Dance Starz)

·       Ruby Award (Bravissimo)

Picture by Maaike Sears

The same dancer from Emergency was also given a Jazz solo. To keep costs at a minimum we decided to make a pair of shorts with a tulle bustle to emphasize her hip movements! This looked great on stage and worked for everyone’s pocket book as well.  

Gare Hasard – choreography Loes Ruizeveld

·       Platinum Award and special Judges Award for Company Level Quality (Candance)

·       Gold Award and winner of Choreography and Performance Award (Dance Starz)

·       Emerald Award and Second place in Category (Bravissimo)

Loes wanted something extremely specific for this piece. Her request was for the girls to be wearing a dress that did not look like a costume, it needed to look like street clothes, something with a V-neck AND white stripes à la Adidas… and of course something the girls could dance in! Sometimes being specific can help but sometimes it hinders… I was not sure I could make something to check all her requests but I managed to make these Lycra dresses with matching shorts under!

Picture by Maaike Sears

Charlie – Choreography by Claude Caron

I was asked to create a costume for a very talented dancer who was asked to go and compete in Florida at this competition's Nationals. Natasha Paz will be performing a piece choreographed by Claude Caron for l' École de Ballet Ouest de Montréal. Chaplin bring back Charlie Chaplin in a pint size model. I started this project, like I always do, with sketches and fabric swatches and sent it all to be approved. I took some measurements and started working on this one of a kind, made to measure costume, to transform a very pretty young lady into a Mini Charlie! The Pants are from a Jalie Sewing Patterns #2803 I added to the waist to make them ultra-high waist-ed so that when her arms are raised you don't see skin, the jacket and fake vest are based off a Burda pattern. I wanted to keep the layers to a minimal so I sewed the front of a vest to a shirt and made an opening in the back of the shirt with Velcro. Natasha's mom made the hat that completed the whole look!