A scene from "Ovo"; Costumes by Liz Vandel
Prior to the West Coast premiere of Cirque du Soleil’s Ovo, which will open Friday next to the Santa Monica Pier, Montreal-born costume designer Liz Vandal is happy to discuss the unconventional apparel for the 55 performers in this extravaganza, which focuses on insect and arachnid imagery. But when she first tackled the job, it was somewhat daunting.
“When the show was in its early planning,” Vandal says, “and we knew it was going to be about insects, my first reaction was, ‘How am I going to do that?’”
Ovo is described as “a headlong rush into a colorful ecosystem teeming with life, where insects work, eat, crawl, flutter, play, fight and look for love in a non-stop riot of energy and movement. The insects’ home is a world of biodiversity and beauty filled with noisy action and moments of quiet emotion.”
Liz Vandal
“I came in a little late into the process of producing Ovo,” Vandal recalls. “I was the last collaborator to be hired for the project. The premiere was scheduled for May 2009. They hired me in February 2008. So, I had about a year to do all the work. The parameters were they wanted an evocation of the world of insects. It was all to be in the abstract.
“I had to think very hard. How do you evoke a spider or a cockroach? I designed the show by closing my eyes and fantasizing: How do I feel about a spider? What is a spider? How would I be if I were a spider? I imagined a spider to be very elegant, sexy with long limbs that move in a certain deliberate way. The task was asking for a sort of interiorization within my psyche instead of an exteriorization where you do actual research.”
Vandal’s process of creation is in keeping with her whole history as a designer. “My first dream when I was three was to be a dancer. I didn’t do it but I did learn music. I started studying fashion design when I was nine. I did not go to design school. I am self-taught. I studied computer sciences to develop my left side of the brain because my right side of the brain was so creative already. I never felt I had to organize my creativity in order to be productive. I prefer to live the experience while building clothing. Although I was interested in fashion design and creating dresses, I was drawn to theatrical costuming, and I have been designing dance costumes almost all my life.”
In 1990 Vandal began working closely with Édouard Lock, founder of the Montreal dance company La La La Human Steps. “I first met Lock in a bar where I was working. He saw potential in me and asked me to design for him. At that time, I had no idea how to sew this kind of fabric. I had no clue what I was doing. He gave me the greatest advice one could get when starting out.
A scene from Vandal's "Amelia"; Costume by Liz Vandal
“He asked me to explore black and transparency. I immediately thought, ‘How boring is that.’ But it led me on to a path of finding simplicity, minimalism and the purity of line to flatter the body and then overlap with the character of the costume. In dance, it is really about the movement.” Vandal went on to design for Lock’s shows, Infante c’est destroy (1991), 2 (1995), Exaucé/Salt (1999), Amelia, André Auria (2002) and Amjad (2007).
Vandal founded her own design workshop in 1992 with her partner Yveline Bonjean. Beyond dance, she has created costumes in the fields of fashion, theater, opera, music and film. The Backstreet Boys incorporated her innovative costumes into their Black ‘n’ Blue tour. She also contributed costumes for the 2002-released films, The Lathe of Heaven directed by Philip Haas and La turbulence des fluids directed by Manon Briand.
She was starting her career in Montreal almost in tandem with the development of Cirque du Soleil in the same city. “Of course, I was always hearing about them. And then they became so fantastic so fast, it became every artist’s dream in Montreal to work with them.”
“They contacted me the first time in 1999. It was the first time they were making a show with an outside designer. But I was too young and naïve and I turned them down. I could have never handled the pressure and responsibilities that would have entailed. Then in 2008, they called for Ovo and I accepted.
“I knew Cirque du Soleil shows call for extreme body movement and the costumes have to move with them. But I grew and developed as a designer with the world of dance. I became sort of a specialist of body movement. Believe it or not, the acrobatic movements you see in Cirque shows are not more extreme than the dance movements in ballet or modern dance. Contortionists may bend themselves in different ways, but they are not more physically malleable than a ballerina.”
A scene from "OVO"; Costumes by Liz Vandal
During the production’s early costume discussions, Vandal and the producers went through the process of deciding whether to produce a primarily green show with natural fibers, organic materials. “But I knew, after a few months, the costumes would all break down and we’d have to throw them away,” says Vandal. “We needed something stronger that would last and would support transformation like printing on them. So we went with polyester. It is not chic but works very well. And they have refined its manufacture. It can be very delicate and refined. You would think it was silk. You can make it matte or shiny, very versatile. The base of most of the costumes are made with lycra. Added onto that are the different textures of polyester that transform the performer into the insect.
“In this show, I had to cover more of the body than I usually do because [most of] the performers were portraying insects. I worked with a storyboard and a list of the types of insects they wanted. In February 2008, I started some sketches for my own benefit. They were not fully realized drawings.
“In June and July I started to build some prototypes to show the idea, which is not what Guy Laliberte (Cirque founder and CEO) was used to seeing. He wanted complete drawings and completed costumes. I told him to just trust me. So, when he saw the general rehearsal with the finished costumes, he was so relieved. We didn’t have to redo any costume, for the first time in Cirque history. I wasn’t surprised. I function with certainty. I had no doubt I was right. But I couldn’t help being so proud of myself.”
Vandal’s company is currently designing a large dance project, Alice In Wonderland, featuring 130 costumes, scheduled in to open in Washington DC in April.
Cirque du Soleil’s Ovo . Opens Jan. 20. Plays (in January) Tues.-Fri. 8 pm; Sat. 4 pm and 8 pm (except Jan 21.); Sun. 1 pm and 5 pm. In February: Tues.-Thurs. 8 pm; Fri.-Sat. 4 pm and 8 pm; Sun. 1 pm and 5 pm. Through Feb. 26. Tickets: $45-145. Santa Monica Pier, 1550 Pacific Coast Highway,Santa Monica. cirquedusoleil.com/ovo.
