From skin to presence: Drawing and making as a process of creation in costume design

Abstract

My research project, Drawing and Performance: Creating Scenography, looked at the way drawing is used during the creative process of scenography within the performance arts. It was my intention to analyse and reflect upon the artistic and pragmatic relationship scenographers have with drawing as a device for the creation of space and time of performance, and also as mediator between the bodies of actors or dancers onstage and our drawing pages. In this article I discuss examples from this research project and from my own practice where costume sculpted during the process of rehearsal came to generate a specific presence onstage and consequently moulded the performance. I argue that this working method expands the function of drawing in the creative process of the costume designer by applying it as part of a back and forth process of analysis and composition which includes the designer’s experience of movement and touch. With this in mind this article follows three examples of Portuguese costume designers who use drawing extensively in their practice: Clara Bento, Claudia Ribeiro and my own.