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Gravity Fatigue: Hussein Chalayan’s Foray into Dance

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Gravity Fatigue - Image 1

Gravity Fatigue, directed by Hussein Chalayan was at Sadler’s Wells from the 28th-31st October 2015

Enter: three dancers, each wearing a white, pleated, knee-length skirt and a boxy jacket with a high collar pulled up to the nose. In step, they make their way around the stage in a manner that can only be described as hula-like – their hips moving in short jerking motions, sending the skirts swishing from side to side, their legs moving as if independent from their bodies.

Soon, they are joined by another trio wearing long black coats. Slowly, but picking up speed, the dancers begin to spin, three at a time, on the spot; the hulas become whirling dervishes. The jackets are unzipped and left to fall. As they do it transpires that they are attached to the skirts and an underbody, with the inside of the jacket covered in multi-coloured sequins. The jackets whirl around the dancers as they spin, creating a mesmerising, hypnotic effect.

This is Gravity Fatigue at its finest – the title of a new performance created by fashion designer Hussein Chalayan for Sadler’s Wells, London. The designer was commissioned by the contemporary dance company and worked alongside choreographer, Damien Jalet, to produce the 1h 15minute performance that showed over four days from the 28th-31st October 2015. Although this was the first time that Chalayan – known for his inter-disciplinary practice – had directed a dance piece, it was not the first time he had shown his work on Sadler’s stage, having used the venue for his famous 2000 A/W show, Afterwards: a commentary on the horror of displacement in wartime that saw models transforming furniture into clothes.

A page from the official programme showing sketches by Chalayan for each of the short tableaux.
A page from the official programme showing sketches by Chalayan for each of the short tableaux.

Officially the ‘hula-dervishes’ were Body Split, dance number 7 out of 18 tableaux that made up the performance, each undeniably stamped with Chalayan’s – aesthetic and thematic – mark. As one might expect, fabric was a central element of the show, in terms of both costumes and set design. The possibilities or restraints provided by fabric formed the starting point for the dancers’ movements, as Chalayan played on themes such as gender, religion, technology, migration, and the self in modern reality.

Photographs in the official programme of dancers in rehearsal
Photographs in the official programme of dancers in rehearsal

Despite these weighty topics the dances never strayed far from a playful humour. Fabric was made to perform alongside the bodies of the dancers, pushing the boundaries of what might normally be expected from material, in classic Chalayan innovation. One tableau, for example, saw the dancer’s dress itself appear to dance. As she stood rooted to the spot it moved and mutated autonomously, and disconcertingly, around her hips.

The fact that Chalayan was entrusted with the role of director, despite his previous lack of dance experience, is a testament to his abilities to cross disciplines in a meaningful and thought provoking way. Significantly, he refers to the experience of creating the show as ‘one of the most important projects in my development as a designer/artist.’  Certainly, Gravity Fatigue brought together two media in a way that created an exciting and enthralling perspective on fashion, material and its relationship with the body.

 

Everyday Dress

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Everyday dress on stage
Everyday dress on stage

This month the Tanz Wuppertal Pina Bausch company presented their annual season at the Sadler’s Wells theatre in London. The company continues to stage and tour the work of the late choreographer, this year presenting ‘Ahnen’ from 1987 and ‘Auf dem Gebirge hat man ein Geschrei’ (On the Mountain A Cry Was Heard).

I was lucky enough to see these performances, and was struck by the use of dress in each production. The normality of the costumes in contrast to the set, which in the case of ‘Auf dem Gebirge hat man ein Geschrei’ was pine trees and a pile of soil in which the performers regularly rolled, sat and fell into, was extremely interesting. The costumes, which included tea dresses, suits and swimming costumes, worked in parallel with the choreography, to create a world that blurred the lines between reality and dreams. The performers are presented as ordinary people, not fixed in a specific time or place, but rooted in the everyday, participating in strange and erratic behaviour observed from life. Unlike other contemporary dance or ballet performances, where one is acutely aware of costume and characterisation, the costumes here felt like ready-to-wear garments. This is testament to the skill of Marion Cito, the costume designer for the company, who designed the ‘everyday’ costumes, whilst still allowing for the freedom of movement and flexibility necessary for a dancer.  Cito says of the costumes: ‘…the Tanztheater costumes are interesting in that they present the dancers primarily as normal people – in dresses, suits, high heels and everyday shoes – as opposed to performers in traditional leotards and ballet shoes’

 Cito, herself a trained dancer, took over the role of costume designer after the untimely death of Rolf Borzik in 1980. The first costumes she designed were for the piece ‘1980 – Ein Stück von Pina Bausch’, a piece that dealt with some of the issues of grief for the loss of Borzik. Cito continued the aesthetic and ethos of Borzik’s work, taking inspiration from everyday life that contrasts the often absurd, surreal and dysfunctional elements of what takes place on stage. Cito worked closely with Pina – looking through old photographs for inspiration. Unlike other dance companies where the costumes and sets are created before production begins, Bausch worked in a different way.

Cito had to design costumes ‘speculatively’, guessing the direction of the choreography – designing alongside Bausch’s choreographic process, entrusting each other with the shared task of creating a harmonious performance that only came together in the final stages of production.

Last year I saw these costumes on the London stage. The performers wore elegant dresses and suits, their splendid garb jarring with the poetic choreography, and the grass floor of the set. The glamorous eveningwear that features prominently in this piece came to be a common feature – a demonstration of beauty and desire, but also ‘…of how men and women interact with each other and use their clothing to hide or reveal themselves accordingly.’