From last year I discovered that there is something very exciting in the production of props and costumes for performance.
- The props can be seen as art work in them selves as they can be sculptural
- The hand made aspect of props can be interesting. How does one solve the problem of going two materials together that just don’t want to be joint together.
- Which brings me to experimentation and and problem solving with is performative in its self.
The last two years of performance have been focused on an endeavor and a journey or just doing.
I wanted to produce a costume which was contemporary but also had an aspect of the ears and historic values of my primary influences.
- Civil war uniform
- Nautical themes
- foundations of the city
- something dark and heavy.
- something that can be projected on without having predetermined infuence.
Civil war themes due to the tunnels been predominately used in the 16th/17th/18th centuries, famously used by Charles the 1st to escape the city.
Nautical themes due to the tunnels being used to transfer good in and out of the city via the river.
Roman foundations. and the roman links to Worcester.
heavy to increase the endeavor aspect to the project. Dark to push the boundaries of urban legends a creature or suspect thing.
Contemporary in the way that people are able to project what they see. it allows the audience the option to perform their ideas onto the costume.
So this is what I ended up with!
I have taken influence from these two images.
The dress seen in both but I like the plating on the Roman armor. the chest plate influences from both. I like the shape of the Pikeman’s helmet but later decided against the brim as it gained reference to Britannia due to the shape. I felt this fit with Worcester which is known as ‘the faithful city’.
I chose rubber as it has the materiality which allows you to mold into what ever you want. it also brings a sexual element to the performance which gives it a humorous feel.
Above you can see a selection of failed attempts. I chose card at first as i had seen people make armor out of it on Youtube. this just didn’t work card is designed to lie flat duh! I quickly gave up on that. The first chest plate i made was too short especially at the back. the circle of rubber intact did work. I added a netted material to this. to reinforce with glue i then cut a second circle out of the rubber to make a rubber glue material sandwich. I then sewed this together! it works really well.
I like working with the material and instead of getting frustrated with it when i couldn’t get it to do the things I wanted it to do i allowed it to do what it wanted to do. I found i got the best results from taking direct influence from the rubber.
