Tutu school = too terrific!

This year, thanks to my wonderful parents who gave me the classes and my family who took me there, I attended Tutu.com tutu school in Charlotte North Carolina.

It was an interesting educational experience, which despite being 5 days of grueling hard work was fun?! I am still trying to process the years of experience that is crammed into you in a very short time.
A good friend of my husband's, who had studied at both MIT and Stanford, was once asked "how much fun was that"? He answered, "well, if you think taking a sip from a fire hose is "fun" than yes it was". Tutu school is like taking a sip from a fire hose.

packed and ready to go 

Packing for tutu school

The first thing that needed to be done was pack up my sewing machines and other sewing paraphinelia into something that would fit into the back of our car. We managed to pack everything and set off before 8 a.m. for the long drive down to Charlotte.
The journey went very well and we arrived at 8p.m. at out hotel.
The next morning at 8 a.m.,  tutu school started in the hotel's conference room. My project was to make a Spanish skirt, while the other women were making mostly classical tutus, a few Romantic tutus, one ribbon candy tutu and two contemporary tutus.

I had previously taught myself how to make basques using the method described in Claudia Folts' book The Classical tutu, so I was told to sit in with the groups taught by Travis Halsey. He uses  a mathematical method to draft a basque and the resulting basque has hip seams as well as a back seam.
After cutting everything out, sewing and serging the skirt and ruffles, I needed to sew many yards of lace to the ruffle edges and then ruffle the layers. Next, the ruffled layers were sewn to the skirt.

Finally, the basque was attached to the top of the skirt and hook and closure were sewn to the edges.
The skirt turned out well for a first attempt and was finished in the two days set for it, working from 8-6 each day.

Sewing the third ruffled layer to the skirt

On the Tuesday I made a tutu bag for carrying tutus. I had wanted to spend some time studying the tutus that were in the room and photographing one or two but ended up not having time.

The tutu carry bag I made.

The last two days of tutu school were spent learning couture bodice techniques from Travis Halsey. I had brought some lace and trim  from home, some lovely fabric was in my kit and the school provided huge bags of fabric pieces to work with. One of the hardest part I felt was deciding what would look good together as there was so much to choose from. I found a small piece of gold duponi, some gold flowered brocade, a black mesh with red sparkly flowers and a black and red ribboned fabric.

bodice front

My assembly of the parts of my pattern was much simpler than some of the other students because I felt the bodice design did not need to be over embellished. The variety of couture techniques that I learned made the bodice easier to assemble while at the same time resulting in a superior result.

Beginnings of a lace applique for the front of the bodice

In the two days of the class, I finished the front and back, inserted the nude inset and piped the top edges. Since returning home I have piped the remaining edges and made an applique for the front. I also fit the bodice on E13 and will complete the bodice this week.
I would still like to add embellishments to the applique, make a matching headpiece and possibly add sleeves. I will post photographs once the project is completed.
We drove home, making the trip in one day which was good since we were all very tired.
I believe I would attend tutu school or some other intensive sewing course again if I had the opportunity since the wealth of knowledge that can be aquired in a very short time is vast.  The whole experience was intense and challenging and probably not something everyone would enjoy or could deal with. Going into the classes with the right attitude and expectations greatly helps.
To find out more about the training offered go to Tutu.com's seminars

Here are the Spanish skirt and bodice that I made at Tutu school:

Spanish skirt and couture bodice made at Tutu.com school

Cinderella on stage

Here are a few photo's and video clips of how Ithaca Ballet's Cinderella appeared on stage at the dress rehearsal.

Cinderella dress rehearsal

Cinderella Fairy Godmother attendants

 Cinderella, Fairy Spring, Fairy Summer, Fairy Godmother, Fairy Autumn, Fairy Winter and Fairy attendants

Cinderella dress rehearsal, Fairy Autumn

 Cinderella, dress rehearsal, Fairy Winter

Cinderella dress rehearsal Fairy Spring

 Cinderella Fairy Summer

Video clips from Cinderella:

Sleeping beauty on stage

Here are some photos and short video clips from Sleeping beauty on stage:

Sleeping Beauty Act 1 Waltz:

The Rose adagio:

Beth Mochizuki as Aurora, Johann Studier as a suitor
(photo by Johann Studier)

Beth Mochizuki, Sleeping Beauty Act 1
(photo by Johann Studier)

Beth Mochizuki as Aurora, Johann Studier as one of the four suitors
(photo by Johann Studier) 

Aurora's friends dance at her 16th birthday party:

Courtier Dance Act 3, Sleeping Beauty

Promenade Act 3:

Precious stones:

Blue Bird and Princess Florine Pas de deux:

video clip

Curtain call:

Ithaca Ballet Sleeping beauty
(photo and all tutus by Hilary Sharp)

Giselle on stage

Giselle: Brent Whitney as Albrecht,  Nadia Drake as Myrtha
(photo credit Johann Studier) 

Here are photos (taken by Johann Studier) of Giselle on stage:
The role of Giselle was beautifully performed by Beth Mochizuki, curently a dancer with State Street Ballet in Santa Barbara California. Beth was a graceful Giselle and her mad scene was very well done. Her pointe work (which is very challenging in this role) was feather light yet strong.
Brent Whitney was exciting and masterful as Albrecht, Giselle's suitor. He filled the stage with his presence and his jumps were effortless.  Beth and Brent worked very well together and gave a top notch performance

Beth Mochizuki as Giselle, Brent Whitney as Albrecht
(photo credit Johann Studier) 

Nadia Drake, long time principle of the Ithaca Ballet, was exceptional in her role as Myrtha.  Nadia has wonderful stage presence in all her roles but seemed especially strong in this one. She was forceful and imposing as the Queen of the dead maidens, and woe to any man who came across her path! At the same time, when she was dancing her initial solo as Myrtha, it was possible to see who the woman she (Myrtha) might have been before she was jilted and died herself: soft, vulnerable and in love. Nadia's performance was memorable and very striking.

Giselle: Nadia Drake as Myrtha
(photo credit Johann Studier)

Ithaca Ballet Giselle: The Wilis, with "Furies" on left and right
(photo credit Johann Studier) 

The Wilis were performed by the Ithaca ballet's corp de ballet.  A good corps de ballet moves together uniformly, with arms, legs and heads moving as one. The dancers gave a very cohesive performance. It really was a shame that the performance was so poorly attended because to see something of this level and quality one would have had to travel to a much larger town.

Ithaca Ballet Giselle: Myrtha and her Wilis
(photo credit Johann Studier) 

How it all started: Giselle

How it all started: Giselle
People have asked me how I got started with costuming. Like most mother's my first tutus were made for E13 who started ballet at 5. As she moved up and began performing more, I volunteered back-stage and before I knew it I was making more and more elaborate items.
The first real ballet I ever was fully involved in was Giselle. Talk about jumping in the deep end with boots and all!
Giselle is the ballet's equivalent to Hamlet, the great Romantic ballet. It is also one of the so-called "white" ballets, because the dancers are for a large part dressed in ghostly white costumes.

Beth Mochizuki as Giselle, with Johann Studier as Hillarion

As with many ballet's of this era and genre, Giselle is the story of a beautiful, innocent peasant girl who lives near a forest. One day a young noble man (or prince) called Albrecht is out hunting with his buddies and meets Giselle. They fall in love, although it is not totally clear how honorable Albrecht's intentions are.
Giselle peasant suitor Hillarion, sees them, and fights with Albrecht but is sent away.
After Giselle and Albrecht have vowed their undying love for each other, Albrecht's fiance Bathilde, her father and the rest of the court come on the scene. Giselle realizes she has been duped, goes mad and either dances herself to death or commits suicide (this is a little murky).
The second act of the ballet takes place in the grave yard in the woods. Local legend says that girls who die before their wedding (or die by suicide) roam the earth at night, searching for men to take revenge on. Their queen, Myrtha, rules her maiden's called Willis and sends them after unsuspecting men who are foolish enough to go into the forest at night. Myrtha is also supposed to be a women duped by her lover and either a suicide, or someone who died of a broken heart (the Romantics truly beileve that people could die from their emotions).
Giselle's peasant suitor Hillarion makes the mistake of visiting her grave after the sun has gone down. Hillarion is discovered by Myrhta and her Willis and is made to dance till he dies. Albrecht too goes to visit Giselle's grave and would have met the same fate where it not for Giselle protecting him. He survives and at the breaking of the dawn, Giselle goes back into her grave never to be seen again.
For this ballet Scott Dolphin and I were responsible for the design and creation of all the "white" Romantic tutus: Giselle, Myrtha (the Queen of the Willis or dead girls) and the Willis.
Scott Dolphin (www.scottdolphinstudio.com) made lovely designs for the costumes using flesh colored powernet covered in white sparkle organza. He simulated vines on the bodices by sandwiching iron-on interfacing between the organza and powernet. The tutu's were three layers of smocking pleated bridal tulle in white, glimmer white and toast, sewn to a quilted basque of powernet and organza.

Cutting layers of white bridal illusion for top layers

Cutting six yards of toast colored tulle for middle layers

The middle, toast colored layer was six yards fabric, railroad cut (i.e. cut as one long piece). The other layers were cut as three or four pieces which were then sewn together.
Working with tulle is hard: it is slippery, gets statically charged easily and you cannot pin it or draw on it to cut it straight. To be able to smocking pleat it, it has to be rolled onto a special dowel and then fed into the pleater, which is cranked by hand. Scott can up with some very clever ways of dealing with these issues. He devised a method of taping the tulle onto a table using painters tape and later rolling the tulle around a metal layer so that it could be cut straight and dagged if necessary.
After the tulle was rolled, the rolls were taped again and then could be pleated.

Cut and hemmed layers of tulle ready for pleating

Rolling tulle in preparation for pleating

Rolled tulle, basques and beginnings of Romantic tutus

 I owned a smocking pleater and was going to be sewing up the tutus.  Carrie Lampman, a then high school student, wanted to learn how to make tutus so she volunteered to be my assistant. Carrie is extremely talented and learned the whole process very quickly. For this project I had two other volunteers who came and helped as well.
I measured up the dancers, then drew sixteen basque pattern and cut them out. Carrie, Lydia, Shushang and I sewed and quilted the basques.

Quilted flesh colored Powernet and white organza basques

Smocking pleated light gold tulle layer pinned to basque

Later the four of us took turn pleating, steaming and then sewing the tutus together. Shushang had never used a sewing machine before but she did great. The final assembly, was done by Carrie and myself. Scott created all the bodices and Myrtha's headpiece. I made also created two hats: one for Bathilde (Albrecht's fiance) and one for a lady in her retinue.

My assistant Carrie Lampman sewing a Giselle tutu

completed Willy tutu

Bathilde's headpiece was to simulate the elaborate hair taping that was common in the Italian Renaissance. I used bias cut strips of velvet in colors to match Bathilde's dress (hunter green, golden mustard yellow and burgundy red), which I braided into a 3/4 circlet. The back of the headpiece was a gold, jeweled snood. I embroidered the head piece with flower-shaped sequins and pearls.
The court ladies' hat was a flat-cap shaped black velvet hat with white ostrich plumes held onto the hat with an embellished pieces of hand crochet lace.
Unfortunately, I do not have any photographs of these two headpieces.
The show itself was extremely well but sadly it was not well attended making it unlikely that the ballet will stage it again. Photos of Giselle on stage will be in another post

The Sleeping beauty awakes: creating a new ballet

Johann Studier and Beth Mochizuki rehearse the Rose Adagio

For the 2010-2011 season, Ithaca Ballet, was to stage a full length Sleeping Beauty for the first time (see this article).
Sleeping Beauty is one of the more popular and challenging ballets, with several acts.
Staging  a ballet of this size requires a huge amount of work by the choreographer, artistic director, set designers, costume designers, costumers, stage crew and dancers.
Scott Dolphin (www.scottdolphinstudio.com) took charge of the shows overall costume design because he had the most experience and expertise in this area. He contacted Cornell's theater department and arranged the rental of several gorgeous costumes for the King, Queen and courtiers.

Count and Countess costume

I together with my assistant Carrie set to work making a very large number of new tutus (24), refurbishing some of the existing tutus (4) and Carrie sewed prince Florimund's coat from a design Scott made.

Sleeping Beauty Act 1 Waltz costume

The wardrobe mistress began collecting existing costumes and sewing new costumes for the Act 1 Waltz and new bodices for the vision scene.

The ballet begins with a prologue in which there are several solos for Fairies who come to give gifts at the Christening of the Princess Aurora. For most of these we used existing costumes. For Crystal Fountain fairy we used the Dew Drop bodice and a Raymonda tutu. Fairy of the Enchanted garden was dressed in the Sugar Plum fairy costume and Fairy of the Woodland Glade wore the a Nutcracker Waltz of the Flowers demi-solists costume.

 Sleeping beauty: refurbished Golden Vine, Crystal Fountain fairy, Enchanted garden Fairy, Woodland glade Fairy

For the Fairy of the Golden Vine, we used the Nutcracker's Ballerina doll tutu which I refurbished

 Old Golden Vine tutu before refurbishment, it also doubles as Nutcracker's ballerina doll tutu

 by adding several additional layers of hand dyed tutu net. I also added a double hand pleated top layer of green embroidered mirror organza decorated with hand-made golden leaf and vine appliques. This top layer was tacked on as a plate so that it could later be removed when the tutu needed to be used for Nutcracker.
I later created a matching bodice in mustard yellow velvet with a jacquard inset, with hand-made gold leaf vine appliques, green mirror organza leaves and a headpiece with several appliques and leaves sewn to horsehair braid.

Sleeping beauty: refurbished Fairy Goldenvine tutu with new bodice

An evil Fairy, Carabosse, appears with her retinue and curses the baby princess. The good Lilac fairy appears (with her six attendants) and changes the spell.

 Carabosse's dress was a dress created by my mother and then altered for the dancer.

Carabosse, the evil fairy, Ithaca ballet Sleeping beauty

Scott created the design for Carabosses's new dress, and the costumes for her attendants.

Scott also created a new bodice and plate and refurbished the head piece for the Lilac Fairy while I made a new Lilac fairy tutu and six new tutus for the attendants.

four of the six Lilac Fairy attendants tutus ready for tacking

sewing layers of hand dyed tutu net to pants

The attendants wore bodices made for Raymonda. Scott hand dyed the pants and many of the layers of netting lilac for me and I mixed tulle in rose pink, lilac and periwinkle to create the right shading of the tutus.

Lilac fairy tutu with a lilac attendant bodice

The bodice and basque were made of a lilac velveteen, six of the nine layers of the tutu were double hand pleated and the top layer was triple hand pleated.

Ithaca ballet Sleeping beauty: Lilac fairy (design Scott Dolphin) and two attendants, tutus by Hilary Sharp

During act 1 of the ballet, it is the princess Aurora's sixteenth birthday. There is a large birthday party with her parents, friends, courtiers, towns people and several suitors in attendance. It is also the day that Carabosse's spell was said to come true. The local peasants dance a flower waltz; Aurora's friends dance and the four suitors dance the famous Rose Adagio with Aurora. It is called the Rose adagio because each suitor hands her a rose.

Beth Mochizuki as Aurora in act 1 of Sleeping beauty

For this act, Scott created a beautiful silk velvet bodice for Aurora, a plate and a headpiece. I created a pink tutu with several shades of pink netting and tulle and a top layer of pink sparkle netting.
At the end of Act 1, Aurora pricks her finger on a spindle and everyone falls asleep. The Lilac fairy and her attendants come to put everyone to sleep and a huge wall of thorns grows up.
One hundred years later, Prince Florimund is in the forest hunting with his retinue. The Lilac fairy appears to him and shows him a vision of a beautiful sleeping princess, with whom he dances.

Scott Dolphin still sewing on the day of the performance

Ithaca ballet sleeping beauty, tutus by Hilary Sharp, photo by Johann Studier,

For this scene my assistant Carrie and I created 12 Romantic length, Williamsburg blue tutus which were worn as over skirts over the old snow tutus. The wardrobe mistress created 12 bodices. On the day of the performance, we also made 12 small headpieces for the dancers by ironing Wonder-under (tm) onto some metallic flower fabric and sewing/gluing ribbon to this with silver fabrics flowers and Swarovski crystals on to them.
My assistant Carrie Lampman created prince Florimund's velvet hunting vest after a scetch and pattern made by Scott.

Brent Whitney as Prince Florimund, coat design Scott Dolphin, made by Carrie Lampman

 After Prince Florimund see the sleeping Aurora, he awakens her with a kiss.
The final act of the ballet is often called Aurora's wedding is is sometimes performed as a short ballet.
During the wedding scene, many story book characters come to visit including the White Cat and Puss in Boots, Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, along with Jewels (Diamond, Silver, Gold and Sapphire) and Princess Florine and her Bluebird.
For Act three,  I: 1) refurbished the Red Riding Hood tutu with a new top layer

 Red Riding hood before refurbishment

Refurbished Red Riding Hood tutu

2) made new tutus for three of the jewels: Diamond, Silver and Gold and refurbished the Sapphire with a new top layer. All the new tutus had 5 layers of double hand-pleated, hand dyed tutu net or a mixture of tulle. The Diamond tutu had layers of pale blue tulle added in and had a sparkle tulle top layer. The Silver tutu was graded shades of platinum, silver, and graphite glimmer tulle, hand-dyed deep pearl grey pants and lower layers of tutu net and had a double hand pleated top layer of black glimmer tulle and silver sparkle tulle. The Gold tutu was graded shades of antique gold, lemon yellow, and gold tulle, hand dyed layers of golden yellow tutu net and a double hand pleated top layer of gold sparkle netting. The top plate-like layer on the Sapphire tutu consisted of two layers of double hand-pleated  silver sparkle tulle, royal blue, Williamsburg blue and jewel blue tulle.

 Sleeping Beauty Act 3: New Diamond, Silver and Gold tutu and a refurbished Sapphire tutu, tutus by Hilary Sharp

3) Re-beaded the Blue bird's jacket and refurbished Princess Florine's bodice and tutu by rebeading the decorations and adding several layers of fresh tutu net and a double hand pleated plate style top-layer of Royal blue, Williamsburg blue and jewel toned tulle. The dancer added feathers, made a new feather headpiece and arm bands herself.

re-beaded Princess Florine bodice

refurbished Florine tutu

Sleeping beauty: Refurbished Blue bird and Princess Florine, Aurora's wedding Act 3

Scott made a new bodice and plate for the White Cat and we used our new Dew Drop tutu. Scott made Puss in Boots new breeches, I knitted the tail out of rust colored fun fur and Scott ordered all the masks. Finally Scot and I made new costumes for Prince Florimund and Aurora. Scott designed and created Prince Florimund's coat, Aurora's bodice and plate. I created the tutu. It was completed double hand pleated white tutu net, with pale pink tulle "sandwich" layers with an off white velvet basque and bodice. The lace on the bodice and the plate was a re-embroidered bridal lace with Swarovski crystals and pearls with additional hot-fix crystals added on.

Ithaca ballet sleeping beauty: Aurora Act 3 bodice
design by Scott Dolpin

sleeping beauty: Aurora act 3 (Aurora's wedding) tutu

The tiara was purchased.
The production as a whole was simply stunning and a testament to what a small (town) ballet company can achieve when it puts all its talented people to work together. Something of this size cannot be done by one or two people but has to be a true team effort, with everyone contributing.

Sleeping beauty: Beth Mochizuki as Aurora, Brent Whitney as Prince Florimund