Thoughts around an uplifting point

Y's by Yohji Yamamoto

Oversized short-sleeved button up shirt in white cotton. High-low hemline. Oxford collar. 
Single box pleat at back yoke.

photo from TotoKaelo

"I think clothes should be made from the back, and not the front.
The back supports the clothes,
and so if it is not properly made,
the front cannot exist."

Yohji Yamamoto
Yohji Yamamoto: Talking to Myself
2002

Ballet professor Wayne Byars, when talking to dancers about how to hold one's body, describes two imaginary lines:
- a horizontal line going from shoulder to shoulder
- a vertical line going from head to lower back, following the spine
The intersection of these 2 lines is an imaginary point.
Wayne directs students towards the mental representation and lifting of this point upward, to carry the body in the best manner - freeing it for dance, and by extension, for life.

Photo from a Philippe Genty puppeteering workshop

cropped from an original by Elena Mesa Alonso of the company Micro-Troupe

Puppeteer Philippe Genty and his company use, for teaching the basics of puppetry, a half-scale puppet which is held with two hands:
- one handle located in the higher back, roughly at the intersection of shoulder line and spine
- the other handle located at the back of the head, at mid-height.
The resulting movement of these puppets is extremely realistic and graceful, mimicking humans in a disturbingly accurate way.

 

Stay pattern, full, back view

based on an engraving from The Art of the Tailor

by François-Alexandre-Pierre de Garsault, Paris, 1769

 

Stay-makers of 18th century France did not measure the human body the way we do now. Instead of taking into account basic orthogonal lines such as bust-waist-hips-torso & back length, they used a set of diagonal dimensions, obtained by wrapping strips of paper around the upper body. A striking feature of this technique is the resulting pattern on the back, showing a clear intersection of several lines roughly in the same imaginary spot mentionned above.

"It should not bend,
but accomodate the body it holds within,
without altering its shape,
while at the same time supporting it
and preventing it from acquiring bad postures"

François-Alexandre-Pierre de Garsault
Art du Tailleur
1769

LIFE CHOICES

Jo Ann Endicott in Walzer by Pina Bausch, 1982

"Almost every dancer from the Tanztheater of Pina Bausch lives alone.
It takes you, it sucks all your time, it demands everything from you.
"It" is your life.
You give your life to "it".
And this "it" is everything.

Working with Pina has always been something very particular for me.
Meanwhile she has become one of the most important artists in the world.
I know how much she appreciates that I am here.
(...)
Does Pina even asks herself how I manage to do it all?
Jo arrives, Jo leaves.
Nobody asks themselves any questions.
My husband sees it.
The children feel it.
But in the end, only I know exactly how demanding it is, how hard it is."

Jo Ann Endicott
Ich bin eine anständige Frau [I am a Decent Woman]
1999

RUNWAY

 photo credits: Viktor & Rolf

A clean, unapologetic read of the floating imagery of ballet. Clean concept, clean execution. Not easy, well done.

Designers: VIKTOR & ROLF
Collection: haute couture
Season: spring summer 2014
Models: dancers from the Het Nationale Ballet ['Dutch National Ballet']
Hair: Luigi Murenu
Music: Nils Frahm
Material: latex

 photo credits: Viktor & Rolf

 photo credits: Viktor & Rolf

  photo credits: Viktor & Rolf

  photo credits: Viktor & Rolf

See the show in motion here:

Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture SS14 H264 from Tilt Factory on Vimeo

EYE

cow's eye

cropped from a photo by ILRI

"Any homogeneous membrane which has holes in it will tend to rupture at the holes, unless the edges of the holes are reinforced by thickening.

The most familiar example of this principle at work is in the human face itself. Both eyes and mouth are surrounded by extra bone and flesh. It is this thickening, around the eyes and mouth, which gives them their character and helps to make them such important parts of human physionomy.

human eye

cropped from a photo by Dietmar Temps

A building also has its eyes and mouth: the windows and the doors. And following the principle which we observe in nature, almost every building has its windows and doors elaborated, made more special, by just the kind of thickening we see in eyes and mouths.

 

bull's-eye

photo by mirsasha

The fact that openings in naturally occurring membranes are invariably thickened can be easily explained by considering how the lines of force in the membrane must flow around the hole. The increasing density of lines of force around the perimeter of the hole requires that additional material be generated there to prevent tearing. (...) It is important to recognize that this stiffening is not only supporting the opening itself against collapse, but it is taking care of the stresses in the membrane which would normally be distributed in that part of the membrane which is removed.

 sketch from the book A Pattern Language

 

More general examples of frames as thickened edges exist all over the world.
They include
the thickening of the mud around the windows of a mud hut,
the use of stone edges to the opening in a brick wall because the stone is stronger,
the use of double studs around an opening in stud construction,
the extra stone around the windows in a Gothic church,
the extra weaving round the hole in any basket hut.

eyelet

(...) Do not consider door and window frames as separate rigid structures which are inserted into holes in walls. Think of them instead as thickenings of the very fabric of the wall itself, made to protect the wall against the concentrations of stress which develop around openings."

Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa & Murray Silverstein
A Pattern Language
1977 

NO COSTUMES

On November 19th, 2007, the Paris Opera Ballet (Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris) gave a performance of The Nutcracker with no costumes and no sets, due to a labor strike.
Dancers apparently resorted to wearing personal work clothes, and danced in front of a single backdrop that was already down.

What a treat it must have been, to be in the audience that night.

Note: this event is briefly described in the wikipedia biography of dancer Dorothée Gilbert, who was named étoile ['star'] that night.
Curtain call can be seen here.

YOUR BODY SIZE VS. INDUSTRY SIZES

Here is a fantastic web app created by web developer Anna Powell-Smith.

What Size Am I? allows you to get a visual image of where your body measurements stand in regards to standardized body sizes used in the clothing industry. [note: wait a little for the app to load]

You simply need to move the top sliders to your own bust, waist, and hips measurements, which creates your personal curve.

Then you can select a mainstream brand on the right, and see how their measurement system relates to you ( in yellow the company you choose / in light grey in the background, all the other companies).

I love the easiness and clarity of this tool.

Body measurements are being so ill-treated and used in the media to define arbitrary ideals, that it's a relief to have a publicly available visualization tool that tells things just the way they are.

Also, you see that the industry does not have one standard, but so many different ones that the idea your body should fit certain criteria begins to crumble (and many fitting room crisis become explained).

I wish this tool was used more widely and that we could feed it with more brands - not only mainstream ones but also ethical / local clothing companies, and for both genders. The possibilities are so exciting.

For more information: Anna's own words here.

BUILDING BY DANCING

 Diébédo Francis Kéré during his Ted Talk : How to Build with Clay...and Community

Burkinabe architect Diébédo Francis Kéré tells about how he went back to his native Burkina-Faso after studying architecture in Germany, to build the first school building there with the help of his village.

He described the rhythmic movements of the builders, men and women, who make the clay floors:

"The young men come, and stand like that [tap], beating; [tap], [tap].
Hours for hours.

And then their mothers came, and they beat in this position [tap], [tap], [tap].
For hours.

Giving water. Giving water, and beating.
And then the polishers came.
They start polishing it. With a stone.
For hours.
And then, you have this result.
Very fine, like a baby bottom.
It's no Photoshop.
This is the school built by the community."

Diébédo Francis Kéré
Ted Talk
2013

DANCE & ARCHITECTURE

Portrait of Martha Graham and Eric Hawkins at Bennington College,

photo by Barbara Morgan, 1938

"They say that the two primary arts were dance and architecture.

The word 'theatre' was a verb before it was a noun - an act, then a place.
That means you must make the gesture, the effort, the real effort to communicate with another being. And you also must have a tree to shelter under in case of storm or sun.

There is always that tree, that creative force,
and there is always a house, a theatre."

Martha Graham
Blood Memory
1991

MAKING A BODY

I am currently making French 18th century stays, as an investigation into the history of clothing, materiality and the body.

The french expression for stays is 'corps baleiné' ['whaleboned body'].
Similarly, the name of a particular kind of stays worn at the king's court is 'grand corps de cour' ['tall body for court'].
The artisan specialized in making them in the 18th century was called the 'tailleur de corps' ['tailor of bodies'].

Isn't is striking that the word for this item of clothing, which molds and transforms the shape of the body, is the word CORPS ['BODY']? Not 'corsage' ['bodice', as is sometimes translated in english], but 'body'.

As if there was no difference between your natural body and this second one.

BARRE AS YOGA

Maurice Béjart and Rita Poelvoorde in the movie Je t'aime, tu danses (1977)

"I met the master:
- Why do you wish to do yoga?
(Naturally a young student interpreter allowed us to have this dialog).
- I think it can help me build my life and make me go forward in my work.
- What is your work?
- I am a dancer.
- Dance is a gift from the gods, Shiva Nataraja is the lord of dance, it is a difficult art. What is your dance?
 I mumbled a few obscure explanations. Actually I did not know what my dance was!
- I suppose, he said, that you have some type of daily practice, some exercises.
- Yes, of course.
 I did not know how to explain them. He said:
- Show me!
I noticed a wooden railing surrounding the covered terrace whose floor we were sitting on.
- You see, we do the barre every day.
- Well, go on!
 I took a deep breath, filled with more fright than for the premiere of a show, and placed myself in front of him, holding on to the railing. The floor was - a rare thing in India - made of natural wood, polished but not slippery, which allowed me to work simply and cleanly.
 After forty minutes, neither his body nor his gaze had changed. I finally said, covered in sweat:
- That's it, this is what we call THE BARRE.

A long silence followed. Then:

- So why do you want to do yoga? If your mind is free and your body upright but without tension, if you let the exercise guide you and not the opposite, if you wish for nothing more than the exercise for the beauty and the truth of the exercise, you have your yoga. Do not look any further! Do what you call "the barre" for the beauty of the barre without thinking about improving, for we improve only through abandonning the idea of improving.

From that day, the barre, for me, wasn't linked to a technique, to a style, to a particular form of dance. It is a yoga which builds my body and my mind and opens me to the possibility of trying to understand all other forms of dance, because dance is ONE."

Maurice Béjart
Lettres à un jeune danseur [Letters to a young dancer]
2001

note: the barre is the handrail which dancers use as a help during ballet warm-up exercises. By extension, the sequence of exercises itself is called "the barre".