Contemporary dance and modern ballet often focus on conveying emotions through patterns of movement which may be abstract, obvious, or anywhere in between, supported by music, sound, or spoken words that set the mood. Scenography is typically sparse or confined to the available space, leaving the dancers as the main instrument of communication. This work explores dressing and wearing, with a focus on how garments can inform and direct movement, choreography, and performance, and in turn how movement may inform and contribute to the development of dynamic garments. Through a series of live experiments, ranging from self-instigated performance/video work in collaboration with choreographers and dancers to performances of garment interaction associated with everyday life dressing, the performative, spatial, and interactive properties of garments are explored. The results present alternative models of collaborative interaction related to various aspects of kinaesthetics, choreography, scenography, and performance space, and offer wide-ranging creative potential. The work shows how designers and choreographers can collaborate on performance scenarios within the context of modern ballet and contemporary dance productions, thus creating conceptual garments that influence the design, choreography, and movement pattern based on a re-conception of what it means to dress and to wear. In relation to the act of dressing and undressing, alternative types of garment and ways of wearing and performing were found where garments act as co-choreographers in the development of performances. Moreover, by having wearing and dressing as a form of choreography these acts, act as the co-creator of garments both in our everday lives and on stage. As a consequence, the results also demonstrates how the agency of garments can function as a manuscript in modern dance, and how performance itself redefines the notion of wearing and the concept of garments.

Contemporary dance and modern ballet often focus on conveying emotions through patterns of movement which may be abstract, obvious, or anywhere in between, as supported by music, sound, or spoken words that set the mood. Scenography is typically sparse or confined to the available space, leaving the dancers as the main instrument of communication. This work explores choreography and costume design, with a focus on how garments can inform and direct movement, choreography, and performance, and in turn how movement may inform and contribute to the development of dynamic garments. Through a series of live experiments, ranging from self-instigated performance/video work in collaboration with choreographers and dancers to performances of garment interaction associated with everyday life, the performative, spatial, and interactive properties of garments are explored. The results of these live experiments relate to various aspects of choreography, scenography, and performance space, and offer wide-ranging creative potential. The work shows how designers and choreographers can collaborate on performance scenarios within the context of modern ballet and contemporary dance productions, thus creating conceptual garments that influence the design, choreography, and manipulation of conceptual garments. In relation to the act of dressing and undressing, previously unseen types of garment and ways of wearing and performing were found. New models of collaborative interaction are proposed. This work has demonstrated how the agency of garments can function as a manuscript in modern dance, and how performance itself redefines the notion of wearing and the concept of garments.

Dressed–Integrity presents new logics of expression and functionality in dress and its relation to the body. As an aesthetic research program in dress it is about the fundamental relationship between form and material, between technique and expression. Through the development in art the program aims to challenge the institutions of craft through the appropriation of technology, and through the development science and epistemology the program aims to challenge the institutions of technology through the appropriation of art. The research program is therefore not an empirical research program that aims to introduce new theories about fashion. It is about developing foundational concepts and theoretical propositions of fashion design in and for itself as an academic field with an obvious integrity. As such the exhibition present a few examples of new techniques, methods, models and definitions of dress and its relation to the body, conducted by handful of PhD candidates within the research program in fashion design at the Swedish School of Textiles, Borås, Sweden.

Conceptual movies focusing on the interaction between garment and choreography. The garment acts as choreographer.

Performance at Ambience 2011