wedding sketches on a sunday morning

in ,

I love making wedding dresses.   It is always such a collaboration between the bride and myself.    It is a process of getting to know the bride- her life style, personality, likes and dislikes.   I want the bride to feel completely comfortable and herself on her wedding day. . . .and of course, beautiful.   The dress should feel organic and inevitable, as though it grew out of her life story.   The bride should feel simply gorgeous! There are as many wedding dresses as there are brides and I love taking that journey of creative exploration .   They, also, seem to love the process. . .

Alenćon Lace bodice with silk chiffon skirt and lightly beaded chiffon sleeves

Alenćon Lace bodice with silk chiffon skirt and lightly beaded chiffon sleeves

Lace Bodice - off the shoulder silk mesh wrap and silk mesh many-layered skirt

Lace Bodice - off the shoulder silk mesh wrap and silk mesh many-layered skirt

Silk Chiffon with beaded details and appliqué silk flowers - embellished cuffs

Silk Chiffon with beaded details and appliqué silk flowers - embellished cuffs

In philadelphia. . .

I was recently commissioned to re-make the costumes I designed for Trisha Brown's "O Zlozony / O Composite" by the Pennsylvania Ballet as part of their Spring season Balanchine and beyond.  Martha Chamberlain, a former dancer with the PA Ballet and now a costumer, made the pants and shorts for the piece.  The concept was padded corsets, supportive, protective and evocative of fencing attire.

Aaron Anker

Aaron Anker

The original piece was commissioned by the Paris Opera Ballet in 2004.

It was a delight to work with the talented dancers and costume shop in Philadelphia to create these costumes.

Lillian di Piazza

Lillian di Piazza

It is the sole ballet that Brown created during her 50 yr career.  to quote Susan Rosenberg from her program essay-

"Performed in all-white costumes designed by Elizabeth Cannon, whose stitching and armbands recall the attire used in the aristocratic art of fencing (considered a source for ballet's technical vocabulary), the choreography joins recognizable ballet moves- pirouettes, expansive leaps through space, and graceful port de bras- with Brown's vocabulary of rapid undulation of the spine, head and limbs, the use of simple walking, and the creation of linear as well as asymmetrical physical geometries"
Lillian Di Piazza

Lillian Di Piazza

Laurie Anderson composed the music with  text from  Czeslaw Milosz's poem "Ode to a bird", Vija Celmins did the set design of a starry night sky, and Jennifer Tipton designed the lighting.  

It was a truly magical time creating the original in the Palais Garnier in Paris,  and wonderful to revive it here in Philadelphia.  The piece was performed  June 9-12,  2016.