The Legacy


Growing up, Ballet North Texas Artistic Director Nicolina Lawson says she learned how to sew from her grandma who also used to make the costumes for her mom’s dance school in Redding, California. “My grandma was probably one of the calmest most put together people I have ever known,” Lawson says. “I always try to channel that energy when I am sewing because you have to stay calm when you sew because it’s the frustration and trying to rush through things that actually make things go wrong.” When Ballet North Texas needed costumes for its first Nutcracker production last year, Lawson spent about six months making 75 percent of the costumes they needed. The other pieces she ordered online or she was given from her friends at Wichita Falls Youth Ballet. Lawson also hits Harry Hines for many materials, such as taffeta, brocade or sequins, but she says, “If am looking for something stretchy there’s a couple of places online, including Blue Moon, Spandex House and Mood Fabrics.” Fortunately for Lawson she was able to find many pieces for The Nutcracker from a wedding dress with a six-foot-long train that she got for free. She says it was just enough material to make all the snow bodices as well as the overlay for the Sugar Plum Fairy bodice. “I knew I wanted a dark purple base and then a sugar coating,” Lawson says about her design for the Sugar Plum Fairy bodice. “So I used the beaded Chantilly lace from the wedding dress over the purple, which created the crystal affect that I was looking for.”


The Academic


When people ask Genie Stallings what she does for a living, the veteran costume designer says she likes to tell them she’s an engineer in soft goods. “I really enjoy the movement of costumes,” says the lead costumer for the Southern Methodist University’s Dance Department. “I am not interested in mannequins on parade. I’m only interested in movement.” One of Stallings favorite costume movement stories is when she designed for Paul Mejia’s Moonlight Serenade for the Fort Worth Dallas Ballet in 1998. Stallings had built a black velvet gown for Maria Terezia Balogh and she remembers standing next


to Mejia during a


dress rehearsal and watching his reaction to the way the material moved with the ballerina. “As she did her chaines the gown wound around her legs and with her penche it unwound and flowed out past her hand on the floor and I heard Paul gasp. I was like oh my God here we go because normally his accolade was ‘hmm that didn’t bother me.’ And what he meant was that’s well balanced. It doesn’t dominate and it is in perfect balance.” So, Stallings knew when Mejia gasped that she had done something right. Over the last 15 years Stallings says she has perfected a system when it comes to designing


Janet Harris and costumes. Photos by David Harris. The Entrepreneur


The full time costume designer for Dallas Ballet Center (DBC), Janet Harris, also has a freelance costume design business, Tutus by Janet, which she started in 2012. Over the years she has worked with Academy of Dance Arts’ wardrobe mistress and close friend Tracey Hawes, Angelia Mugavero at Royale Ballet Dance Academy and Sally Andriot at Toby’s School of Dance. Harris has also been recently commissioned by Royale Ballet Dance Academy to make new Waltz of the Flowers Corps de Ballet tutus. Harris’ introduction to costume making started at DBC where she spent most of her time already with three of her dance-driven children (one of them, Jonathan Harris, is a former DCNT Scholarship recipient and now dances professionally at Dayton Ballet). Her tutu training began in 2006 with one of Sayers’s seminars at TCU. “I was fortunate to have a very generous mentoring


relationship with adds, “The Patty environment at Sayers


after the class,” Harris says. “Patty guided me through many projects and encouraged all of my attempts.” Harris


DBC,


Ballet North Texas photo by DFW Dance Photography Still, her late grandma’s impact on her work continues, as Lawson inherited her sewing machine


along with some of her original


patterns, all of which she still uses today. 18 • DANCE NORTH TEXAS


• AUGUST – OCTOBER 2019


with its large wardrobe inventory, has also been conducive to a lot of hands on training and learning a lot about tutus. With a large Nutcracker cast and full-length classical ballets every June, I’ve been working virtually year


round on costumes for 13 years.” When it comes to building tutus Harris says that it’s important to her to keep the tutu “alive.” She explains, “Many of the tutus have long histories and I think it honors not only the workmanship of the original maker, but also every dancer that wears the tutu.” She continues, “Tutus are a magical costume! Most of the time, at DBC, I’m working with high school pre-professional dancers and I watch long tiring rehearsals melt away during a tutu fitting into joy and excitement.” While most of her tutu work over the years has focused on the preservation and alteration of costumes for DBC, Harris says she also enjoys making new costumes for the company. Some of her favorite new construction tutus include: Bluebird for Sleeping Beauty, Black Swan for Swan Lake and Swanhilda’s wedding tutu for Coppelia. “Tutus are an investment,” Harris says. “They take a lot of time to make. Sixty hours fully decorated, at least, so it’s important for them to be cared for and preserved.” This preservation mindset allows tutus to be repurposed to fit new dancers or change decorations to give the tutus a new purpose. “For example, a blue tutu may be a Lead Mirliton in Nutcracker, and with a change of overlays it becomes a wedding tutu in Raymonda or a Sapphire Jewel Princess in Le Corsaire.”


costumes for the SMU Dance Department. “I tell the choreographers at the first production meeting that I like to get a pure audience member view of the choreography. So, you go work with the dancers for several days and after you get some stuff together I’m going to come and watch a run through. And after the run through I’ll tell you what I saw in the movement. And 90 percent of the time what I’m seeing is what they’re trying to communicate.” When it comes to her designs Stallings says it’s all about the choreography. She explains, “It’s all about the choreography as the dancers execute it. That’s where I start my design process is by watching it, and I’m seeing colors and I’m seeing movement. And every once and a while you have a choreographer who comes in with his choreography all planned out and in that case we’re working off a script.” Stalling adds, “When designing for dance you have to listen to what their vision is because their vision is so much more visual than a play director’s. So, I frequently say that I will give them exactly what they want. Exactly the way I want to give it to them. Because their vision is more important than my vision, but I will take their vision and run it through my aesthetic and skills and it will be mine.”


Stallings say she is usually given a three week window for dance costumes, but in some cases, such as Dwight Rhoden’s Stellar Matter for the 2019 Spring Dance Concert, she is given more time to play around with her designs. “For Dwight’s piece, he started the choreography in the fall because of his schedule so I was able to get that whole thing designed and prototyped before Christmas.” Stallings says the most challenging part of her job is when she is asked to design modern clothes. “Regular dance costumes or dance costumes that are based in historical fashions I am very confident. I know what I’m doing and how I’m getting there. With modern clothes I will get there, but I am sweating bullets the whole time.” She adds, “But when you bring people in for costume fittings and they are excited and happy, you know that you are doing something right and you are not violating the aesthetic. And it’s very gratifying when people are excited about what they get to wear.” Katie Dravenstott is a freelance writer and dance instructor in Dallas. Visit her blog at kddance. wordpress.com.


Stallings costumes include Dallas Ballet Company’s Mouse King from The Nutcracker and Christopher Dolder’s Bolero costumes for SMU Meadows Dance.


Photo by David Harris


19 • DANCE NORTH TEXAS


• AUGUST – OCTOBER 2019


Photo by Paul Phillips


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