Australia on display: Tracing an Australian identity through the evolving costume design for The Australian Ballet’s production The Display

Abstract

The topic of costume for performance as a cultural marker is in its infancy within the context of cultural studies. As the means by which an audience relates to character (and so, the story), costume is central to our understanding of cultural identity. Here we consider costume for performance in Australia as an indicator of the developing national identity, using the 1964, 1983, and 2012 Australian Ballet productions of The Display as a case study. The original 1964 costumes were credited to expat artist Sidney Nolan, the 1983 version was designed by Sydney fashion designer Adele Weiss and the 2012 remount utilized photographs, written documentation and memories to recreate the original costumes. By examining the three sets of costumes, we aim to demonstrate how a study of the costumed body allows a deeper understanding of an evolving national culture and identity.

The costume designer as co-author of contemporary dance performance: Erika Turunen’s signature style

“…It extends from the early twentieth century (Fensham 2011) to the early twenty-first century (Fensham 2014) and contributes to the identification of select, 'repetitive' costume-garment types that have significant repercussions in dance performance and the development of successive costumes over time. Similarly, highlighting the capacity of costume to partake in societal discussions, Collett and Alsop (2017) articulate how three stagings of one dance -i.e., in the 1960s, 1980s, and 2010s -with prominent use of everyday garments as costumes reflect the development of national identity in Australia. Barford, in turn, discusses the ways that costume choices based on the use of mundane garments create meaning through incongruence in choreographies by Pina Bausch (2016: Chapter 6, 108-09).…”