Inspiration and Creation : Cirque de la Lumiere

This year The Goddess Movement (link) had it's annual "vertical theatre" production entitled Cirque de La Lumiere. An astounding array of acro, hoops, silks, pole, trapeze, and contortion performances ..... magically wound together in a mystical story of good attempting to triumph over evil, transpiring under the big top at the night circus!

My part was creating the costumes in a way that portrayed the characters but did not jeopardize the safety of the performer. This proved to be a bit of challenge at times..... boots slipped on poles, fabric wound as they spun on the trapeze, seams split twirling down the silks, capes and cloaks caught on legs and apparatus, various body parts unexpectedly revealed!! All of these costumes in the ideal world would be made of spandex and there would be no problems, but spandex is limiting and you know why can't a ballerina do a pole dance?! So after many fittings and try outs with each performer it all came together! So here is a look at a few of the costumes during the making and the performance.

First step was to source all fabrics to have a cohesive production.

Warrior Queen of Light

Pleather, hundreds of grommets, feathers and lacing made Aryn's costume "light"

in a "warrior" kind of way!

We rented this amazing flying lion (I know.....what???) from Can Am Importique (link)

A great place for any imaginable prop.

Queen of the Dark Side

Her evil cape was lined (in purple) so as not to catch on the sequins on her bodysuit, which then totalled 14 yards of fabric to eloquently spin on the hoop. No easy feat!

Goose feathers added the wickedness to this unitard. I wanted them to stand up behind her head but didn't realize she was wearing her spectacular hair down and wild..... which as you can see was

beyond perfect for her character!

I think the boots took longer than anything on this costume; hand painted pleather, grommeted, laced, hard to fit and dangerous to perform in. Remember what I said about spandex?!! So much easier but it just doesn't capture the feeling.

There was a lot of strategic placing of sequins

feathers and mesh to make this costume work.

We even hot glued the feathers on the mesh while she had the costume on! Brave women! I also painted the mask to make it a little more sinister.

The Light Fairy

Swarovski crystals, hand painting, beads, sequins, lace, tuelle, satin, flowers.... there was nothing this

fairy costume didn't have..... not to mention massive wings!

Lilly the lost child of the night circus.

Stiffened tubes made her skirt fun and whimsical. I made it so that the

hoops would accordion together when her part called for sitting down.

Here are some more picture from the performance but no work in progress pics. When I am madly creating I don't often think about future blogging! Hmmm.....may have to work on that.

A very special thanks to Cristal McLaughlin-Sawatsky of Level 6 Images (link) for so beautifully capturing the moments!