The Hugging Project

A contemporary dance piece.

My Role : Collaborator, Set and Costume designer, Costume Constructor.

The brief was to design and make two realised dance costumes and an unrealised set design, while considering sustainable options when making both, which would be staged and video recorded.

For our design for the piece, we want to draw into the idea that everyone we meet leaves a mark on us, as do the performers physical touch. We want to highlight the memory of these marks by having the costumes hand stitched with the same organic movements and having holes on opposing sides of the tops so when they hug they match each others.

We also want to show the fragility of humans by having loosely sewn pieces on the garments, drawing it all together with red thread not only mimicking the veins within the body but also the not so invisible string that keeps the two performers coming back to each other.

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Set design.

Creating the Set design I wanted to create something that juxtaposes the eccentric, highly detailed costume designs.

It was decided on that we would create a set that looks like a box made from black metal bars as to confine the dancers into the space together highlighting the difficulty to get away from each other.

Through design meetings with the choreographer it was later decided that the set would not be a box made of metal frames but a glass box inspired by the look of museum boxes as to make the audience feel like they are looking onto specimens much like a

museum.

The digital drawings were created using a combination of AutoCAD, Photoshop and Procreate by Amelia Feeney and Xingyi Chen.

Costume Construction

The Costume designs were created by Violet Goens and Xingyi Chen.

We all collaborated when we started draping material onto the mannequins which was very successful as this is where we finalised designs.

Making the costumes, JD Newman Turner created the patterns which were then made into trousers. I did all of the machine sewing as I had the most experience.

As a group we collaborated on embellishing the pieces, I took charge of the red top.

We used fittings as a good time to check whether the dancers could do all of the movements within their costumes and to fit the pieces better to them and their preferences of how it should fit.

Filming and Final Images.

When filming the final piece I took charge as I wanted to direct.

I created filming storyboards and shot list to use within our tech rehearsal and final filming, we had a tutor assisting us film and he praised the shot list as it was very thorough and created an image of what the shot would be within the writing.

Me and Violet Goens filmed the final video together.

Images by Xingyi Chen.