The Business Meeting of the Costume Design Group occurred on July, 5th, at Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA - Room 204, General Education Building), Taipei (Taiwan), during WSD2017 and was chaired by Simona Rybáková, Head of the OISTAT Costume Design group, with the Vice-Heads Sofia Pantouvaki and Rosane Muniz.
| Attendees | Apologies for not attending: |
| Alessia Carpoca (Italy/USITT) April Viczko (Canada/CITT) Chao-Hsuan Wang (Taiwan) Christina Lindgren (Norway) Clare McGarrigle (UK/SBTD) Daphne Karstens (Netherlands) Donatella Barbieri (UK/Italy) Emily Collett (Australia) Emma Chen (Taiwan) Fruzsina Nagy (Hungarian OISTAT Centre) Fu-Ling Guo (Taiwan) Isabel Pirillo (UK/SBTD) Jodi Karjala (USA/USITT) José Luis Ferrera (OISTAT Spain) Juli Balázs (Hungarian OISTAT Centre) Kazue Hatano (Japan/PaCPA-Associate Member) Laura Crow (USA/USITT) Linda Pisano (USA/USITT) Lise Klitten (Denmark/DS OISTAT Centre) Mateja Fajt (Slovenia) Miki Hoei (Japan/Kage-Mai) adia Malik (UK) Rosane Muniz (Brazil – Individual member) Sabine Snijders (Netherlands) Simona Rybáková (Czech Republic – Czech OISTAT Centre) Sofia Pantouvaki (Finland/Greece – Individual member) Susanna Suurla (Finland/Aalto University) Susan Tsu (USA/USITT) Suzanne Osmond (Australia/NIDA) Ulla-Maija Peltola (Finland/Finnish OISTAT Centre) |
Chrisi Karvonides (USA/USITT) Gregor Sturm (Germany) Hyun Sook Kim (USA/Korea) Margaret Mitchell (USA/USITT) Naima Agamy (Egypt) Selma Djulizarevic (Serbia) Virginia Vogel (USA/USITT) |
AGENDA
1. Welcome
An introduction was made by Simona Rybáková, Head of PDC/C, with contributions by Rosane Muniz, Vice-Head for Projects and Sofia Pantouvaki, Vice-Head for Research.
The leadership explained that they work together in a democratic way through teamwork as one leader. Many participants had never attended a CD group meeting before, therefore this introduction provided an overview of the group, its activities and aims.
2. Agenda of the meeting - minutes
Christina Lindgren kindly agreed to write the minutes.
3. Discussion about the change of CDG from Group to Sub-commission – chaired by Rosane Muniz
Following a long and fruitful discussion between the OISTAT Executive Committee (EC), Governing Board (GB) and the Heads of the working groups, the OISTAT Congress on July 3rd- 4th, 2017 decided that all former working groups would now be Sub-commissions within the Performance Design Commission. This change involves the groups of Costume, Space, Lighting, and Sound.
The new official name is Costume Design Sub-commission.
Lise Klitten suggested to check with the other Sub-commissions to look how they will title themselves from now on, so the groups could keep the same style in how the Sub-commissions are presented. The group, with the other Sub-commissions, is willing to find a more interesting title, for example: Performance Design Commission /Costume (PDC/C). The final decision will be made on the next EC/GB meeting, in October, in Budapest.
The CD group saw this change as positive since:
The response from the members was positive.
The three leaders asked the group members if they wish to have a new election for a Head and Vice Heads, now that the Group was changed to Sub-commission. The current leaders were elected in Prague during PQ 2015, and have worked two years for the group. The members unanimously agreed that the current leaders continue their work until the next meeting in Prague during PQ 2019. Simona Rybáková explained that in the Business Meeting at PQ’19 there will be regular elections for the leadership for the next term.
4. Report from our last activities: Information about the most recent activity:
a) World Costume Festival 2016 (WCF) – presented by Laura Crow
Members of CDG were invited to World Costume Festival 2016 at Vigan City, Philippines, but only few were able to attend. Laura Crow showed images from artistic work and from the festival.
b) Costume at the Turn of the Century exhibition – presented by Susan Tsu
The exhibition opened at the Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, in Moscow, June- August, 2015. Igor Roussanoff greeted the members but had to leave the business meeting, so Susan Tsu informed the following:
As a continuation of this exhibition that has been travelling (USA, 2016; Taiwan, 2017), there will be a new exhibition with the world premiere in June 2019, called Innovative Costume of the 21th Century: The Next Generation.
Susan Tsu presented the curatorial concept: The focus will be on new practices in costume design. For example, innovative materials and innovative use of new technology/light and projections within costume. Other forms of innovation in costume design are also welcome (We saw an example of this under the OISTAT CDG Costume Panel #3｜Costume and Politics, in Taipei, on Tuesday, 2nd July, during WSD2017). The exhibition will aim to uncover some work that surprises us, and to show new ways how to think about costume.
Igor Roussanoff will act as the Artistic Director of the project, while Susan Tsu will undertake the Chief Curator role. Like the previous exhibition, the leaders of this project are looking for national curators to propose new work for the exhibition.
The presentation included also some information about The Bakhrushin Museum, as Susan Tsu said: “a great venue for exposition: The range of spaces, screens and possibilities to exhibit were amazing. In the 2015 exhibition there were 300 designers and the exhibition received a positive response from the costume designers exhibiting since costume was presented as art in an art context (the museum space)”.
For the new exhibition:
Susan Tsu and Igor Rousanoff also stated that they were looking for national curators: some countries do not yet have a curatorial team. They suggested a small national team of curators, not one singular curator. They encouraged people to contact them on the email address: innovativecostume2019@gmail.com
Susan Tsu also provided some information about the time schedule and the process, which will be as follows:
5. Other activities related to CD group:
a) Madrid CDN Conference – chaired by Simona Rybáková
tentative invitation for CD by OISTAT Spain, presented by José Luis Ferrera
In June 2017, Simona Rybáková and Sofia Pantouvaki were invited – as professionals and not as OISTAT members – to speak at a National Conference in Spain organized by Centro Dramatico Nacional (CDN). It is a conference for scenographers, lighting designers, costume designers, sound designers, and includes both makers and designers. This year the focus was on costume design. On this occasion, there was a chance to meet Spanish colleagues and to briefly introduce OISTAT CD group to them.
José Luis Ferrera explained that OISTAT Spain wants to organize a new event in the end of spring next year (2018) and invite the OISTAT CD group to meet in Madrid. For now, this was a tentative invitation. Sofia Pantouvaki, Simona Rybáková and Rosane Muniz responded that this would be interesting and the PDC/C leaders can help organize it. José Luis Ferrera explained that he needed to discuss this with his Spanish colleagues in OISTAT Spain and would get back to the group with a better-formulated proposal.
b) Critical Costume 2018 and costume research – chaired by Sofia Pantouvaki
Sofia Pantouvaki made a short general presentation on research on costume design and the connections of CD to different costume research events:
i. Presentation of the research seminar Thinking Costume that was held during WSD2017 on 6-7th July, Taipei, 2017
This costume research seminar was organized by Sofia Pantouvaki and the Costume Methodologies research project of Aalto University in collaboration with CD members, who joined the seminar as respondents to the researchers’ presentations. The presentations were selected through an open call and through blind peer review. This seminar had 14 international presenters (Ph.D. projects in all phases and some master projects) + 5 respondents, a mix of costume designers and scholars. The main aim of the seminar was to provide peer support for works in progress and to provide an environment to share research processes.
This seminar was originally proposed to happen as collaboration of CD group with the OISTAT Research Commission, but since the Research Commission remained inactive for a while, the project was done as part of CD program only, as a costume research activity.
ii. Discussion about Critical Costume
Critical Costume (CC) is a research network, conference and exhibition. Its brief history:
2013 – CC was organized at Edge Hill University, UK, by Sidsel Bech and Rachel Hann.
2015 – CC was organized at Aalto University, Finland, by Sofia Pantouvaki.
2017 – The event had to be cancelled due to obstacles by the proposed host.
2018 – Critical Costume will be organized again, the host is yet to be decided.
There is a possibility for interested persons/institutions to host CC in the future. The Critical Costume Steering Group are working on the form. The next event (CC conference and exhibition) will be in 2018, then every two years. It was discussed that Critical Costume can also generate CD events. So far, many CD members have attended Critical Costume in 2013 and 2015, where they presented their research and artistic works.
iii. Cloud project
A new format for collaboration in OISTAT has been introduced recently; the Cloud project. It is a metaphoric term for collaboration without having a base in one country or another. A Cloud project goes beyond one Sub-commission and can be a collaborative project between Sub-commissions or can be a cross-commission project. Sofia Pantouvaki gave an example that the research seminar Thinking Costume could have been a cloud project.
6. Discussion about OISTAT website – PDC/CD area, chaired by Rosane Muniz
a) Costume Design Universities database
There is a need for a site of universities that offer study programs in costume design. Laura Crow commented that USITT has a list which can be published.
Conclusion: Nadia Malik will collect the information. Please send information to cd.univ.data@gmail.com
b) Costume Design Publications database
Discussion was held about the benefits of having a list of publications and a place where CD members can share new readings on costume.
It was agreed to collect a list of writings on costume: anyone that has written about costume for performance in any language could share the information. Books about costume design and not fashion design are desired. Publications where there is a chapter on costume design are also welcome (in this case, please provide the info on the chapter): contemporary costume design, scholarly and analytical writing on costume, or historical research about theatrical costume – but not general research about historical clothing which is already widely accessible.
Conclusion: April Viczko (University of Calgary, Canada) will collect and organize this list.
Please send information to cd.publ.data@gmail.com
c) Costume Design Research Links
The group also discussed to include links on the OISTAT website pages to costume design related information, for example: exhibitions, historical costume archives, webpage, museums…
Conclusion: Laura Crow volunteered to reorganize an older list and send a list of links she has already compiled. Suggestions of interesting links for costume design research can be send to cd.links.data@gmail.com
d) Minutes
The OISTAT webpage includes the minutes from all the meetings of CDG, and from now on, from PDC/C.
e) Photo Gallery
Members are welcome to send a photo of their work and present themselves on the PDC/C pages on the OISTAT website. We now only have 27 designers presented with one photo of their work and a link to their webpage. There is a possibility for all to be present there.
Send a picture with the following information:
7. Indigo trip in Taiwan info (8th July, 2017), presented by Laura Crow
Laura Crow informed the group about the upcoming one-day excursion to the indigo farm with possibility for doing a workshop.
8. PDC/C Future meetings – open to proposals
Prior to WSD 2017, some persons have expressed an interest in hosting a meeting:
Nick Ularu, from Romania, for a meeting during Sibiu Theatre Festival
Naima Agamy, from Egypt
Afif Ghurub Bestari, from Indonesia
José Luis Ferrera, from OISTAT Spain, for a meeting in Madrid
In 2018, OISTAT will also celebrate its 50 years in Cardiff (28th August – 2nd September)
Nick Ularu presented the possibility for a meeting in Sibiu, Romania, in June 2018:
The SIBIU International Theatre Festival in Romania takes place every year in June; it is the
third biggest theatre festival in Europe. The organizers could offer accommodation (16 - 20 people can be accommodated). An exhibition could be possible and this could be part of the festival. A symposium or a workshop would also be possible.
The other two expressions of interest (from Egypt and Indonesia) did not have representatives in Taipei and will be further investigated by email. Jose Luis Ferrera had already spoken about the Spanish proposal (described on item 5.a of these minutes).
The following information is required in order to propose a CD event: dates, space, program, theme, and links to local industry.
The CD business meeting for 2018 is not yet decided: the leaders need to receive formal invitations in order to discuss these tentative proposals further.
9. Adjourn
The CD group invited the members to respond on their program during WSD2017. There was positive response from the members, but also a question of why there was not more programming. Sofia Pantouvaki explained that there was relatively little response to the call to present, so the CD leaders had to search for additional presenters to complete the program.
Members thanked the Heads of the Costume Design Sub-commission for their great work. Simona Rybáková closed the meeting.
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Minutes recorded by Christina Lindgren, revised by Simona Rybáková, Sofia Pantouvaki and Rosane Muniz and edited by Margaret Mitchell.
Download the full meeting minutes in pdf
