Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1984 - 32

BOOK REVIEWS

Designing for the Dancer by Roy
Strong, Ivor Guest, Richard Buckle, Barry
Kay and Liza Da Costa. London: Elron
Press, 1981. ISB 0-904499-11-1, 116 pp.,
ill., £4.95 paper.
Designing Jor the Dancer is a collection
of essays and interviews dealing with the
history and development of costume design
in ballet from the sixteenth century to the
present. It is not a "how to," craft oriented
text. Rather, it is a somewhat disparate collection of material by three noted British
dance historians: Dr. Roy Strong, Ivor
Guest and Richard Buckle, and interviews
with tlVO important British dance designers,
Barry Kay and Liza Da Costa.
Dr. Strong, director of the Victoria and
Albert i\luseum in London, authored the
first chapter, "Dress As Hieroglyph: Costume in the Ballet de Cour." The ballet de
cour was the gesallllkllllstll'erk of the sixteenth century-Renaissance man's attempt to synthesize music, painting, poetry
and dance into a single work of art in emulation of classical Greek and Roman models.
It originated in the lIIagnijicences of the
Valois Court in France and served as an elegant expression of harmony and order in art
as well as politics. Strong points out that the
history of dress in the ballet de cour reflected the history of changes in the monarchy and the uses to which they put ballet.
Ballet costume in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was related to contemporary dress with some adjustments made to
facilitate movement.
niformed costumes
were important in the creation of visual emphasis for patterns of movement. Depending on the subject maller of the ballet de
cour the costume utilized allegorical, symbolic and exotic forms of ornamentation.
Strong's essay reveals his extensive familiarity with the period and it iconographic
sources. He relates hi tory and philosophy
to the entertainments and the costumes that
were used in discussing the development of
the ballet de cour and its various national
manifestations in France, England, and
Italy.
Ivor Guest's "Costume and the ineteenth Century Dancer" is the second and
longest chapter in the book. It pro\'ides an
expert overview of significant developments
in ballet costume from the mid-eighteelllh
celllury through the end of the nineteelllh
celllury. Guest begins by considering the
move in the eighteenth century toward a
more natural line in dress and a corresponding improvement in the technique of danc30

ing. Ballet costume during this period mirrored developments in fashion, with certain
exceptions made for the requirements of
movement. Guest examines the work of important costume makers and designers and
describes the evolution of the Romantic tutu
from Lecomte's costume for Pauline i\lontessu in the sleep-walking scene in the ballet
La SOlllnalllbule (1827) to its apotheosis in
i\larie Taglioni's costume for La Sylph ide
(1832), the quintessential Romantic ballet.
The invelllion of tights and leotards and innovation in dance footwear are also covered. Guest discusses the relative paucity of
good costume designers working in ballet in
the nineteenth century and the relative un'importance costume design held as the century drew to a close.
Richard Buckle, the authoritative biographer of ijinsky and Diaghilev, wrote
the third chapter, "i\lodern Ballet Design:
1909 - 1980.' He t races developments in
ballet costume design from the innovations
of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes through contemporary trends in British, Continental
and American dance. Les scholarly in tone
than the two preceeding chapters, Buckle's
essay sometimes reads like a compendium
of famous artists and impressive productions. His observations reflect his personal
experience in ballet and are provocative.
Throughout he argues that today, the beller
the ballet the less need for costume, and that
in the 1980s the designer is becoming more
and more of a superfluous luxury in dance.
The final chapter of this book is the text
of two interviews conducted by Alexander
Schouvaloff, curator of the Theatre i\luseum at the Victoria and Albert, with dance
designers Barry Kay and Liz Da Costa. The
interviews are detailed discussions of their
careers and working procedures in designing sets and costumes for classical ballet as
well as modern dance. Kay, an older, more
established artist, has de igned many ballets
for the great theatres around the world. Da
Costa is a young designer who has worked
with a number of experimental dance companie in England. These are two of the best
illlerviews with designer I ha\'e read and
serve as refreshing coulllerpoints to the historical material that preceeds them.
The book is illustrated with 110 black
and white illustrations and 36 color plates.
The illustrations consist of production photographs, prints, and designer sketches, and
the quality of the graphic reproduction is
generally very good. A closer coordination
between the text and the placemelll of the
illustrations would be helpful and strength-

Thealre Design & Technology I USITT Fall) 9 -l

Editor: L. Garren

en the overall presentation of the material.
Indeed, the guiding hand of an editor would
have been helpful in standardizing the format of the three historical essays in the
book. Roy Strong, at the end of Chapter
One, provides a short, selected bibliography
for his work. Ivor Guest footnotes his e say
but provides no bibliography and Richard
Buckle's chapter is without footnotes or
bibliography. The book also lacks an index,
which limits its use as a reference ource.
Nevertheless, Designing Jor the Dancer
serves as a good introduction to the history
and development of costume design in
ballet.
Robert C. Hansen
Bowling Green State University

Illustrated Dictionary of Historic
Architecture edited by Cyril ~1. Harris.
New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1983.
ISB 0-486-24444-X, viii + 581 pp., ill.,
514.95 paper.

Illustrated DictionGlY oj HislOrical Architeclllre is not the kind of book with
which one quibbles. Typically a dictionary,
it is terse, exact and authoritative. It covers
mainstream architecture in the Far East, the
ear East and the West over two millenia.
It contains five thousand definitions, almost half of which are illustrated, in its
nearly six hundred pages. Thi is the book
to which you turn when you want to know
the difference between the generic baptistry
and the more specific columbethra.
While the author makes it clear in his introduction that this is by no means the definitive dictionary of pre-modern architecture, there can be no doubt that this is an extremely useful book. It provides terms that
are cross-referenced ("field panel, See
raised panel"); alternati\'e spellings ("Brettice, Bretesse, Breteche"); synonyms ("a
lobed arch, a cusped arch"); and oriental
terminology is presellled in both Arabic and
calligraphic characters. Nary a Stonehenge
is left ulllermed.
However, fllustrafed Dictionary oj Historical Architecture disappoillls visually
overall, if only slightly. While the designer
has laid the pages out admirably, there is a
nagging disappointment in the graphic images. The clearest are those line drawings
made specifically for this publication. The
greater percentage, howe\'er, are reproduced historical engravings from the allthor's personal collection which tend, Cll-

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1984