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Alice in Wonderland article |
Sue Blane talks about creating the costumes and sets for Alice in Wonderland
“And what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?”
When Macmillan first published Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1866 there were plenty of both. Lewis Carroll’s anarchic yet magical world was brought brilliantly to life by the 42 black and white drawings, which accompanied the text. The illustrations were the work of Sir John Tenniel, a contemporary artist well known for his work in Punch, who worked closely with Carroll to create the vision of Wonderland which has proved so enduring. Macmillan has continued to publish editions of Alice ever since. In 1911 eight colour plates were added which had been prepared by the artist Harry Theaker towards the end of Tenniel’s life. These fixed the image of Alice as you see her today, blonde hair, blue dress and striped stockings.
The idea was originally developed by Derek Deane and Carl Davis in 1996. They wanted to produce a totally new piece, bringing Alice in Wonderland to the stage as a ballet. Derek approached me directly and I thought it was a wonderful idea, with stunning subject matter.
When faced with creating something as well known and celebrated as Alice in Wonderland, there’s quite a lot to go on. My main focus was to turn Lewis Carroll’s famous characters into characters that would work in a classical ballet. First and foremost the costumes had to be danceable and allow the dancers as much freedom as possible to compliment Derek’s choreography. I was also keen to acknowledge Sir John Tenniel’s original drawings in my designs.
Another key aspect of any designs is that the costumes should always be “danceable”. To understand what makes a costume danceable is really common sense. A dancer ideally should be able to move in every direction. One of the most interesting costumes to design was the square tutu for the pack of cards, an idea that Derek and I came up with together. Classical dancers use the shape of tutus to balance, so to make a square tutu work in the same way as a conventional one was quite a challenge! The prototype took quite a while to perfect in order to get the balance right. The animals were also a challenge; I wanted them to be believable as animals but they also had to show off the dancer’s movements.
The costumes had been in storage for several years, as last year was the first time this production of Alice has been performed since 2000. After such a long time in storage there are bound to be new challenges for the wardrobe team and dancers when it comes to the costume fittings. The costumes are stored extremely carefully and are taken out of storage in plenty of time before work is started on them, to make sure they are in good condition. The more detailed work starts when the costumes come to be fitted. There are often small adjustments required after a costume has been danced in for the first time; luckily English National Ballet has a great costume team on hand to make any changes. We also go through several weeks of fittings before a production opens. The dancers have the opportunity to try on the costumes and see how they feel to move in. Dancers are great technicians and know how to move in a costume in order to make it work to its full effect; something that for most of us would be impossible!
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