Artificial Things

Design

Published:

“The design process and working with Stopgap in general was a rewarding and collaborative experience that I would love to repeat. It was such pleasure to work with Lucy and the hugely talented dancers who kept on blowing my mind at every rehearsal.

Early on in the process Lucy discovered the work of Goran Djurovic and presented his work to me. The atmosphere of his paintings reflected perfectly what we were looking to achieve for the first scene: a mundane waiting room where the dancers interacted and met. As the piece evolved we wanted the space to come to life and the final scene to be a bare, cold, snow engulfed world.

As the design developed we felt that the space should be a painting with the dancers as the subject. I introduced an enormous painted canvas with strips that are removed during the piece to completely change the atmosphere. We were inspired by a vitrine that was in one of the paintings and decided that it would be an interesting interactive object for dance. In developing its uses I thought it would be beautiful if the snow in the story could come from this image. The vitrine became a snow globe and the snow of the final scene came from here. Taking this further we framed the dance floor so that the whole stage became the painting.

The costumes are an eclectic mix between late 50’s and 80’s in cut to achieve a largely timeless feel. All of the costumes are heavily painted into so that they really feel part of this large painted canvas that we have created. Costume changes are also important to the evolution of the look of the show, taking us from mundane to rock and roll through to snowscape!“

Anna Jones, Designer

Read more about Artificial Things