Extravadance

I had the amazing privilege to be able to attend the tech rehearsal for Extravadance. I joined the girls from the Dance Costume Shop for this. Every time they have an Extravadance performance they go to the tech rehearsal so they can see if each of the dancers are wearing their costumes properly and to see if there are any last minute needed alterations. 

For this Extravadance that I was allowed to be involved in, we sat in the audience and each of the girls had either a notepad or notes open on their phone so they could write down anything they noticed needed to be fixed in the wardrobe of the dancers. I was also able to get some really nice photos during the performance as well.

When the show ended, each of the girl from the shop had collected notes they had on the costumes, and we huddled up and each said what we noticed so Claire could compile it. We picked out the most important and relevant notes and Claire shared them with the dancers. Some of the notes that were relayed to the dancers were, one of the ballet tutus was too short, some of the hats being worn in a number were all worn differently and needed to be cohesive, and some of the men’s pants needed to be hemmed. It was cool to see how many improvements the girl’s caught during the performance. I noticed a few things that could use improvements in the costumes, but the girls caught way more. It just goes to show when you work with apparel, you get really good at seeing what others may not.

Something else interesting I learned while at Extravadance, was that the Dance Costume Shop has a specific type of lipstick they provide to the dancers that is easier to remove from the costumes if it gets rubbed off. If the dancers were to use any other lipstick, it would stain the costumes.

Watching the Extravadance performance was really rewarding. Seeing all the costumes I’ve been seeing slowly come together, be worn by those dancers and move on stage, was very satisfying. It really makes you feel like all the work and time put into them is worth it.