Political by Design: Costume Design Strategies within the Finnish Contemporary Dance Productions AmazinGRace, Noir? and The Earth Song

Abstract

Abstract This article examines costume design within three Finnish contemporary dance productions in the 2010s, AmazinGRace, Noir? and The Earth Song, by respective costume designers Soile Savela, Sanna Levo and Karoliina Koiso-Kanttila, to identify the ways in which costume works within performances with political themes through cases that make use of ‘everyday’ garments as costumes. Here, everyday garments as costume refers to identifiable forms, silhouettes and connotations, as opposed to fantasy or ‘abstract’ costumes. Political, as defined by the themes of these performances, means subject to power relations: societal inequality, ethnicity and otherness and climate change. Despite having shared ground in employing everyday, real-life costume components, all three designs operate with a distinct strategy. Hence, this article discusses three strategies for materializing political aesthetics through costume: one that is inclusive in its use of ‘ordinary’ clothes as costume; one that builds itself through ready-made connotation and representation in costume; and one that is associative in its approach towards the capacity of costume. This investigation, from the perspective of a costume researcher and designer, not only argues for the potential of costume to communicate political meaning through its aesthetic choices but also reveals the versatility embedded in this under-researched area of everyday garments as costume within contemporary dance performance.