Costume and the Performing Body

Barbora Příhodová is a theatre theorist focusing on the work of Josef Svoboda, contemporary scenography, costume, and lighting design. She is a PHD candidate at Department of Theatre Studies, Masaryk University and lectures at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts (JAMU), and is the co-author of the script for the documentary ilm Theatre Svoboda. She is also one of the authors of Czech Theatre Costume (Arts and Theatre Institute, 2011). 146 mm Costume and the Performing Body student sections of the PQ where the geographical divisions Costume and the Performing Body play a crucial role. The audiences carry into the exhibits their predetermined expectations, ideas, or images of the displaying country. The perception of the exhibit or the way it is read and incorporated into the spectators’ value systems is thus shaped by By Barbora Příhodová these preconceptions. Given that the Prague Quadrennial is an international exhibition focused on performance design, the “input” views can involve both: a more general cultural stereotyping and some reined ideas on the particular country’s theatrical culture and scenography. What the participants of these sections at the PQ “see” (or better, what they think they see) is very much a relection of the complex net of these assumptions. The assumptions about a country and its culture that a visitor brings to the exhibition are not the only factors affecting perception; the “seen” is also instigated by what is presented, that is, the way a particular country or region manifests itself. At the Prague Quadrennial the demonstration of the national is created through consensus by designated authorities. In other words, it is created through what the national curators think is representative of “their” theatre and scenography and what is the most convenient way to present it. The selected artists, performance styles, and scenographic strategies are uniied under the single umbrella of the particular country and “its” scenography. It was Pierre Bourdieu who pointed out the symbolic Extreme Costume exhibition at the Prague Quadrennial 2011 “power to consecrate” in the ield of cultural production where artistic mediators—publishers, critics, agents, and academics—produce Some of the most noteworthy characteristics of costume as presented at the Prague Quadrennial 1 2011 were embedded in its method of presentation. The Extreme Costume exhibition broke with the traditional organizing principle of the Section of Countries and Regions and Student Section at the Youlian Tabakov – Footnotes about Beauty meaning and value of the artistic work. These intellectual elites are the ones who grant prestige, and legitimize good taste, thus functioning as tastemakers or cultural guides (Bourdieu 123). The concept of nationality created at the PQ by the PQ – based upon country and region. It presented a vast shared space divided neither by nation nor curators embraces Bourdieu´s concept of the symbolic power: the spectators’ expectations are reinforced culture; no countries, no sub-divisions (mental or physical), but a space of costumed representations – or questioned – by means of the power of the cultural-academic ield to consecrate. 2 of bodies. In an exposition demarcated by geographic and political boundaries, embracing the actual exhibition space and its contents usually comes only after recognizing the cultural reference. The cultural image pre-existing in the mind of the spectator and the validation or subversion The spectator’s attention is directed towards acknowledging the borders and differences between of this image by the national curator coalesce into a new vision. Though remaining in a very speciic exhibiting countries. realm of scenographic exposition, we could therefore say that we are approaching what Edward Said articulated as “imagined geography” (49), which inextricably interconnects with Bourdieu’s “power Foregrounding the concepts of borders necessarily brings into play speciic problems as suggested by Edward E. Said in his pertinent 1978 study, Orientalism. There he uncovers the common to consecrate.” It is through the interplay of the two that the imagined scenographies of respective cultures are generated in the minds of the spectators. mental process of creating arbitrary ictional “familiar” space deined in opposition to the “unfamiliar” one as a way of “making geographical distinctions” that are accompanied by distinctions “social, These imagined scenographies are the result of a continuous ininite (re)construction process ethnic and cultural” within the discourse (Said 54). The unfamiliar space situated “outside one’s own” that also works backwards—imagining a particular theatre culture helps us through the mechanisms carry “all kinds of suppositions, associations, and ictions” (54). Though Said deals speciically with the of differentiation to create or re-create the notion of “our” respective cultures and scenographies. construction of “the Orient” as opposed to “the West” by western scholars, the principle established These national exhibitions can thus also serve as tools for the spectators to re-gain and conirm their by him can be also applied for the context of smaller distinctions as presented at the countries and cultural identities. 76 BARBORA PŘÍHODOVÁ BARBORA PŘÍHODOVÁ 77 The way the countries and student sections are structured thus begins and leads back to the aspect of national or cultural identity and with it to the arbitrary value of being distinctive, different from somebody else. It naturally raises questions like: What are the differences? Can we tell different cultures by content? Are there some geographical patterns or is it all the same? No matter how relevant these questions are to the state of contemporary scenography, they are always potentially present, implied by the structure of the exhibition. This condition was avoided in the Extreme Costume section which presented costumed mannequins placed around on the sloping loor of a dimly lit underground space, whose gloomy, perhaps mysterious or even sacred atmosphere (visitors often automatically lowered their voices in the space) was periodically suffused with rather peculiar music/sounds coming from the neighboring Norwegian exhibit. The politial and cultural borders performed at countries and student sections were eliminated and although there were labels on the loor that identiied the name of the designer, his/ her work, and the country of origin, they could be easily missed or ignored in the semidarkness of the exhibition space. Because of a more strict and selective curatorial approach, only 18 countries participated (as compared to 51 in the Section of Countries and Regions). Moreover, some of them, such as Mexico and Brazil, were represented more than once. Consequently, the spectators had to operate with a different mode of perception and within a different context, not based on categories promoted in the Countries and Student Sections. The context consisted of other “extreme” costumes. Of course, acknowledging the national identity of a particular costume could contribute to the process of deriving meaning. For example, in the case of Queen Tamora’s Wedding Dress3, designed by Eloise Kazan of Mexico, one could associate the bullet shells from which the robe was created with the current political situation in the country and the ever-increasing number of people shot in conlicts between the Mexican state and local drug cartels. On the whole, however, the Extreme Costume section challenged the spectators to ind new ways to construct their ideas on the work presented there. While the expositions of particular countries were often based on the idea of re-creating the original context of the performance, or the experience of theatre as such, the Extreme Costume section went in quite the opposite direction. The curator Simona Rybáková stated: We have consciously removed the various costumes and objects from their original contexts, because our aim goes beyond showing their application within the original performances. We were interested in freezing time in order to draw the visitors’ attention to detail, form, and experience that theatregoers often miss or that pass by too quickly during the action on stage (Rybáková 281). Therefore, while a few glimpses of contextualized costume and costumed bodies could be captured throughout the national and regional exhibits, some of it through the presence of live performers as in the Icelandic, Japanese, or Czech pavilions, the dominant display of the Extreme Costume employed a completely different strategy. The stiff, plastic mannequins facing a wall of projection screens with accompanying videos echoed the modernistic rejection of the instable and imperfect actor’s body—an issue famously raised by E. G. Craig—and posited costumes as objects of the viewer’s desire; fetishized objects or modern totems to be subjected to the spectator’s gaze.3 As a consequence of this strategy, the spectators were not only unable to work with the category of nationality and related historical and cultural contexts in 78 BARBORA PŘÍHODOVÁ Eloise Kazan – Queen Tamora´Wedding Dress BARBORA PŘÍHODOVÁ 79 garden bed and start moving. Such “costumes” do not offer many guidelines for the spectators and substantially reduce the possibility to conceptualize the seen on the basis of previous (theatrical/costume) experience. With national or performance contexts substantially re-positioned, what was emphasized was the context of (extreme) costume, and the ictitious body it potentially (un)covers, yet to be deined by the audience. The organization of the exhibit therefore brought a new challenge to the spectators: their imaginative map had to be created using their subjective and intimate, but at the same time universal and collective experience of their bodies. Everyone had to rely on their own bodily experiences that are embedded in the broader socio-political—though not necessarily national—context. The imagined scenographies of the countries and student sections were altered for the subjective body of the Extreme Costume. Madaleine Trigg – Sutre Many of the costumes on display relected the theme of the body as a broad ideological battleield that, following the work of Michel Foucault, Karolína Heřmánková – Kultivar has been long established in cultural studies, feminist, and other critical theories. These costumes suggested an extremely heightened sensitivity towards and perception of the body. the same way as in the countries and student sections, but unless they watched the accompanying videos they were denied the possibility of recreating the context of the performer’s body and its relationship to other One of the displayed artifacts was a glass corset, a design with the expressive name, Footnotes elements of performance. Costume was presented as a distinctive element removed from syntagmatic about Beauty (see p. 77), by Youlian Tabakov. This costume was to be worn by “voluntary or non- relationships (within the performance) and resituated within paradigmatic relations (with other costumes). voluntary” performers in different nightclubs in order to “look absolutely different or sometimes even By the power to consecrate of the Extreme Costume curators, these paradigmatic relationships producing opposite” (the artist’s statement) from their normal appearance. The corset—a piece of clothing distinctions had become the center of attention and meaning. that traditionally kept the body erect making the waist thin and lattening the chest—represents the complicated alliance of beauty and desired appearance with pain and discomfort. Here the costume In keeping with the curatorial concept of Extreme Costume, the exhibited pieces were pushing juxtaposed cold, hard, yet fragile glass as the material which would create the shape of the soft warm the customary limits of theatrical costume. Seeking to display costumes that were “unconventional, body of the wearer. Furthermore, its transparency made the process of manipulation, commonly hidden exceptional, and unusual,” that “broke free from established patterns,” and explored the “diverse spaces and private, openly visible and public. Footnotes about Beauty performed a body controlled and imposed and situations” in which they can be encountered (Rybáková 281), the Extreme Costume section upon; other designs featured bodies resisting, escaping, and subverting deep-rooted norms. challenged the very deinition of costume and clothing itself. Often constructed from unusual materials such as hair, electric bulbs, or trash, most of the artifacts on display deied or subverted theatrical The tension between imposed bodily orders, including the recognition of gender identity, and conventions and expectations. However, it was not so much the use of nonconventional materials—a their continual destabilization was inscribed in Betty Boob by Pat Olezko. This design consisted of a long practice dating back to at least the avant-garde of the 1910s and 1920s—that broke norms, but rather coat and a hat made of inlatable forms representing female breasts lowing freely in the air behind that the exhibit forced a reconsideration of what we mean by “costume” the performer. The human body was deconstructed into pieces in order to be re-constructed again in and how this phenomenon (or as the exhibition showed, rather an activity, a completely new order, while the costume questioned the established notion of body-composition (the force, or an approach) is structured. That was particularly obvious in the idea of body as a stable entity with objectively given borders). Among other questions, the spectator could case of costumes represented solely via video recording. For example, ask: What is the gender of the body carrying this costume? And does it matter? in Misha Le Jen’s performance, Boots, the protagonist dives under water with rubber boots attached to his feet, and so creates a brief image of Costume subverting the fragility of the human body could be seen in the costume/performance boots walking on the surface of water. What is the costume here, we called Sutre by Madeleine Trigg. It was “conceived as a rejection of how contemporary society ‘molds’ could ask: the boots, the performer’s act of diving, the resulting vision the female form and demonstrates the struggle to return to and celebrate the natural body,” as the of boots on the water? Similar questions could be raised in Karolína artist declared in her statement. The performer is dressed in a white robe with red “embroidery.” Heřmánková’s Kultivar. Its performers, covered with clay, awake from the 80 BARBORA PŘÍHODOVÁ Misha Le Jen – Boots During each performance the costume, made of special water-soluble material, dissolves under BARBORA PŘÍHODOVÁ 81 In doing so, they constantly challenged the audience to reconsider their own corporeality. Not deined by the country of its origin, performance, or the speciic body of the performer, the exhibited costumes performed the human body as a site for social, political, and ethical struggles. By introducing decontextualized costumes in a united space, the curators of the Extreme Costume exhibition altered the spectators’ perspective. The curatorial and architectonic concept of the installation shifted the position of costume within the contemporary theatrical culture. What had been a usually marginalized experiment was re-positioned as a model for artistic creation. Costume designers could step out of the shadow of the other components of performance to create their own performances. Costume became autonomous; removed from traditional staging. Often somewhat neglected and silenced in the whole of the performance, costume in this exposition found its voice and became consecrated as the crucial site from which to view theatre and performance. By presenting it in its most radical, most extreme forms, the curators of the Extreme Costume transcended what Roland Barthes called “the diseases of costume” in his essay (41). According to him, in order not to be “sick,” (41) theatrical costume needs to serve the whole of the performance. However, costume as presented at the PQ did not strive to be functional in serving the performance, for in this case it was the creator and the source of the performance in itself. Emma Ransley – InHABITing Dress Leo Fressato, Débora Vecchi, Elenize Dezgeninsk – The Girl and Autumn Notes: dripping water, leaving just a trace of the original shape. It cannot be re-used, recycled, or archived. 1 Curator: Simona Rybáková; Architect: Marie Jirásková. In this situation the costume was presented as the unstable element, whereas the body was the entity 2 For the purpose of this essay, I compare the Extreme Costume exhibition only to the Section of Countries and that lasts. A similar theme was raised by the costume by Leo Fresato, The Girl and Autumn. Made of Regions and Student Section omitting other sections of PQ 2011: Architecture and Light and Sound. Situated in ice—a material that necessarily melts in the proximity to the body’s warmth—it played with the notions one building, the three sections discussed by me represented the most remarkable contrast, raising some striking of ephemerality vs. eternality. At the same time it perhaps undermined the gender stereotypes that questions to be addressed in the following text. clothing constructs (male performers wore ice bras whereas female performers were topless). The 3 For The Titus Procession based on Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Theater de la Paz, San Luis Potosi, Mexico, 2007. design that won the Gold Medal for Best Costume Design, the InHABITing Dress by Emma Ramsley, 4 Interestingly, roughly around the time of the PQ, “Savage Beauty,” a grand exhibition of the work of the late was presented as a fast-motion video of a body seen only from the neck down, in a simple white high-proile fashion designer Alexander McQueen, was taking place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New dress, almost neurotically picking at the garment, plucking away small pieces of it, until it gradually York City. Immersed in a dim space and accompanied by carefully selected music, the identical asexual, lifeless disintegrated under the attack. mannequins featured some of the designer’s most extravagant creations. In McQueen’s exhibition the human body was absent in favor of clothes—clothes to be observed, clothes to be worshipped. This sensation was The performative agency of costume was also visible via exhibited pieces that explored the further enhanced by placing the costumed mannequins into a zone behind ropes, and/or behind glass. By using ability of costume to communicate a speciic play. For example, the previously mentioned Wedding headless mannequins or pieces that covered the whole face, McQueen’s exposition took it to another level. The Dress for Queen Tamora made of bullets, represented one of the “narrative tools” to perform body disappeared in order for the clothing to emerge. Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. This “cold, heavy shell, an arm and armor in one, a self destructive fort” (artist’s statement) mediated the quality of the queen’s marriage to the Emperor Saturninus. Works cited: Other examples of costume advancing its performative strategies and yet turning to the body itself Barthes, Roland. “The Diseases of Costume.” Critical Essays. Trans. Richard Howard. Evanston: Northwestern can be taken from Konstantinia Vafeiadou’s project Retrospective based on Beckett’s play, Come and UP, 1979. 41–50. Go. This performance represented the conlict of the three female characters by means of costume Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. Ed. and intro. Randal Johnson. and its interaction with the performer’s body. New York: Columbia UP, 1993. Rybáková, Simona. “Extreme Costume.” Prague Quadrennial 2011 Catalogue. Vol. 1. Prague: Arts and Theatre The costumes presented in the Extreme Costume disposed of potential performative properties, often establishing the body and its conlicts as their theme, as the main protagonist of the narration. 82 BARBORA PŘÍHODOVÁ Institute, 2011. 281–282. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. 25th Anniversary Edition. New York: Vintage Books, 2003. BARBORA PŘÍHODOVÁ 83