We
are Uzma Kazi and Samantha Jackson from Liverpool Instutue of Performing
Arts, we are currently in the final year of BA (Hons) Theatre and Perforamnce
Design.
It
has been a great experience to work with the team of
transition. Working with the Artistic Director, Bisakha Sarker,
has opened up our creative approach to projects. She has been open to
ideas and made the process a very easy, comfortable and enjoyable journey,
opening up many doors for us along the way, which included working with
Kali Dass, a freelance choreographer, as well as with Jasmine….from
Random Dance Company. Their input has been essential and driven our ideas
further.
It has been a joy to design and make the costumes for both groups of dancers.
Not only has it allowed us to creatively apply our skills and knowledge
artistically, but through our research process, we too, have had the opportunity
to question what exactly out heritage is.
Spirit
of Liverpool: Friday 7th March 2008 2pm
‘The
Spirit of Liverpool’ is about the combination of different cultures,
arriving in Liverpool over the past 800 years, and we wanted to reflect
this in the costumes. It was nice working with dancers bringing their
own cultural practices to the piece, and also combining to learn new skills.
Each costume has a colour and pattern that represents a culture or society
which merge together as colours and shapes combine, which shows the cultural
exchange beautifully through dance. The dancers had to put up the different
concepts thrown at them, and we would like to thank them for making it
an enjoyable and fun process.
Gen(H)ome:
Saturday 8th March 2008 2pm
The
unravelling of the ideas for the Gen(H)ome piece moved on from the very
classical and traditional costumes, to a more fresh and contemporary feel.
We came up with the concept that although everyone maybe uniform in some
sense, each person is unique in their own way, whether that be through
eye colour, fingerprints or even how differently we act to the five senses.
The costumes we present here convey just this message. We came to use
the Indonesian batik technique experimenting with a range of colours which
were very similar to the images of cells and DNA we came cross in our
research. We attended many rehearsals and were taken aback by all the
hard work and effort put in by all the children of the community dance
groups, watching them come together to mix and share their heritage through
dance.
With
thanks to:
Ashley Shairp, Joe Stathers-Tracey, Bisakha Sarker, Kali Dass and Eimear
Kavanagh, Jasmine and Kate from Random Dance Company, Debbie Wright, Sue
Lancaster and Mira Gokul.
Also, a very special thank you to the performers of ‘The Spirit
of Liverpool’ and to all the children that took part in the Gen(H)ome
piece, from The Greenhouse Project and Southport YMCA.
The whole team will join us in saying a big thank you to LIPA and Mike
Brown for organising the funding for the costumes.