Costume as an Active Presence and Activating Object with Dr. Natalie Rewa

Eiko Ishioka (1938-2012) only agreed to design costumes when they were to be crucial in performance. Her costumes provide significant insights into the interdependence of human and non-human matter built on the power of human movement and of the materiality of the costume. This recalibration affords a kinesthetics across genres of performance. Such design by her and others [Dean, Levine, Forbes] invites a contemporary rethinking of the agency of costumes in our transnational circumstances.   

Natalie Rewa (Professor Emerita, DAN School of Drama and Music), is the author of Scenography in Canada: Selected Designers (2004), co-editor of Imprints of Process (2008), editor of Design and Scenography (2009) and guest editor of the Canadian Theatre Review special issue, “Costumes and Costuming” (2013)