Costuming a 'Mermaid' at S.F. Ballet

From SF Chronicle:

As a boy, John Neumeier was torn between studying visual arts and dance. "The circle closed when I became a choreographer," said Neumeier, artistic director of the Hamburg Ballet in Germany. "For my first works, I couldn't afford to hire a costume designer, so I did the costumes myself. And even later, I found it was easier to design them myself."

Neumeier's costuming abilities are evident in his 2005 ballet "The Little Mermaid," whose San Francisco Ballet performances through March 28 and which has a breathtaking mermaid costume. Ballerina Yuan Yuan Tan uses her costume - which includes elongated, winglike Japanese pants; a Balinese-style top that looks like wraps of seaweed; and an African-influenced hairstyle - as a form that has multiple functions. The costume can extend her, constrict her and even show her painful transformation into a human being.

Neumeier said he thinks of choreographing ballets not just in terms of "putting steps together but of creating a whole world." So the costumes are key. While conceptualizing "The Little Mermaid," he was on tour in Japan and while watching a Noh play was struck by an actor who wore hakama - medieval trousers that flow on the floor. "Suddenly, I realized these trousers negate the sense of legs," he said. For his mermaid, Neumeier redesigned the hakama into wide-legged silk pants that pool onto the floor when she stands and fan out like fins when she is held aloft to "swim."

But Neumeier didn't want to make the costume completely Japanese. The next solution came during a visit to Bali, where he found himself admiring the embroidered fabric women and young girls use to tightly wrap their torsos. He decided to use that style for the upper part of the costume, and to have the mermaid, during her metamorphosis, remove the Balinese bands. "So that she literally rolls out of herself," he said. "The shock of seeing her naked legs and feet is very special."

The third and last "ingredient" of the costume came from a book on Africa. There was a photograph of a woman with a series of braids affixed to the back of her head "that looked like a halo." Again, the choreographer knew the style could create the effect he wanted for his version of Hans Christian Andersen's 1836 tale. "I wanted the mermaid to be obviously part animal," Neumeier said. "Like a beautiful ET."

Like a beautiful ET--from animal to alien? What a lovely account of how a costume came into being. I would have liked a better picture with the article, though.