Behind the Seams: The Story of the Dance Costume

Behind the Seams: The Story of the Dance Costume is a research series that is investigating not only the history of dance costumes but also the future to which it is heading. The centerpiece of the project is a series of podcasts, interviewing luminaries in the fields of dance costume creation and inter-related technologies. Kendall Swendsen created podcasts with many different guests and topics, including: Whitney Laemlli on the history of the pointe shoe, Jarod Lewis on the New York City Ballet’s Fall Fashion Gala, Claudia Folts owner of Tutu.com on her company, and Catherine Zehr Costume Designer for Ballets with a Twist. To ground her understanding of traditional dance wear and enrich my conversations with podcast guests, she has included as part of her monograph, the making of a classical tutu and ballet bodice, realizing a design by Tony award winning costume designer Gregg Barnes for the New York City Ballet’s Cinderella.

The objective of both the creation of the dance costume and the interviews is to further her own knowledge and hear from experts in the field about their own personal learned experiences. Costume designers as a community rely on one another to pass down these time honored techniques so through the podcast and creation of this monograph will be useful to sustain such an intricate and time honored tradition of making. There are no other podcasts doing research into the history of the dance costume, its evolution over time, and where the future is taking it. Discussing these topics with experts in the field about the history as well as up and coming people and where they see the future of such a niche area is going, she learned not only about traditions but also what are the cutting edge ideas amongst the experts in the field. She left her interviews feeling inspired by the makers, artisans, and designers. This research is critical and comes at a time when fewer and fewer people are learning the art of the creation of the dance costume.

This project was made possible with support from the Frank-Ratchye Further Fund microgrant #2024-013.