New York Sun
By MARY STAUB August 21, 2006
Like most experimental choreographers, Sean Curran throws costumes together on a limited budget. But for his work with American Ballet Theatre's Studio Company at the Joyce Theater, he had fashion designer Charles Nolan on his team. And the collaboration enhanced the character of the dance more than anyone expected.
ABT played matchmaker by bringing Mr. Curran - whose downtown dance troupe, Sean Curran Company, is known for its intelligence and physicality - together with Mr. Nolan, a designer with a talent for pretty frocks and sexy suits. The two met up at a company rehearsal for Mr. Curran's new work, "Aria," set to baroque arias of love and lament by Georg Friedrich Handel. There, Mr. Nolan sat quietly at the studio's side and watched the dancers and choreographer at work for an hour.
"I always have to have a story connected," Mr. Nolan said. "When I make clothes, I think: Where is she going in this? Who is she? Why is she wearing this?"
Similarly, when he watched the dancers dance excerpts from "Aria," he saw the story behind the movement. For a postmodern, collaborative choreographer like Mr. Curran, however, narrative usually takes a backseat to character and emotion.
"We might be imitating a scene from life in dance language, but I'm certainly not telling a story," Mr. Curran said. "What Charles did in a way was give us a back story. I was responding to the idea of love, loss, regret, and longing in the music. He placed them at a ball - after the ball, when some people were leaving the party with someone else and others are alone."
The women wear formal gowns of white, each of individual style. A deep scoop neck shows off one girl's decolletage, and a low dipped back emphasizes another's back; Deep cleavage for the temptress, a more modest collar for the reserved. The men wear formal attire, each in a distinct stage of undress.
With a deeper sense of narrative, individual characters for each dancer, and formal wear as clothing, Mr. Curran started coaxing more acting out of the young dancers. The Handel arias speak of love and longing, and the young dancers - ages 16 to 20 - started to visualize that feeling during costume fittings. The company trekked to Mr. Nolan's studio on Gansevoort Street where Mr. Nolan draped, cut, and styled the costumes.
"Charles was doing his own little dance, a duet, with each of the dancers," Mr. Curran said. "The women were being draped like fashion models. You put a costume like that on and it changes the chemistry, it adds a whole layer and gives you something more to work with."
And indeed, when these young men and women step onto the stage in classic black and white, they project a celebration of themselves at a transitional moment in their young lives. It may only be prom night, but the clothes do work.
