Stitches in time: making a Prince

He is basically wearing a costume that an aviator might wear, but sent through the filter of a dream because, in fact, the whole piece of the Little Prince is a memory, and even then, it’s a story within a memory. Once we’re in the story, The Aviator is already a memory of another time. So, it’s not a realistic costume, but I’ve borrowed the elements of a World War II aviator costume, or parts of it, and then put it through this filter. And there’s also a similarity in the colour of the Little Prince and the Aviator, so they have a connection. What’s not clear in the story is whether the Little Prince is an extraterrestrial or whether he’s a figment of the Aviator’s imagination, because we’re in this strange imaginative world where anything can take place. Because of this, the costume’s a bit lighter, taking all of the things and moving them in a lighter realm to allow for more movement as well. The Vain Woman is actually a transposition because we took the character The Vain Man, and turned it into The Vain Woman. It’s more interesting to have some roles for females in the piece. When I was talking to the choreographer about it, he was interested in the notion of the ballerina who’s obsessed with her own reflection. All these planets in the Little Prince are portraits of obsessive adult behaviour, so you have greed, vanity, etc. The Vain Woman then became quite interesting. Not only is she reflected by other woman who like her, but she’s also reflected by parts of the set which are mirrored, and then the costume is reflective as well. So I began to look into the idea of a mirrored costume, a mirrored tutu. I also wanted to feel like it was growing on the body of the dancer. What they used was strips before they cut the sequins – it’s the actual material for sequins – so it’s really flat and light, and that was sewn onto the whole thing, to the material, and then cut away in between the cracks, so you are able to get the idea of a cracked mirror. We went through many different versions trying to find the snake. The snake is a woman in this piece because I wanted there to be a relationship with the female body that all of the characters have, so that we become very aware of their bodies. She has on a slip that’s flesh-coloured, like her skin, and this is playing with the sexuality of her character. The fabric itself: I was working in Lyon, in France, and I was in the costume shop and they had this piece of fabric hanging up on the wall which is kind of almost made from nothing. It’s very fine, with this greenish-blue-gold tinge to it, and it comes from Japan. In a way, it has its own luminescence onstage, which is what we wanted.