More than 170 costumes in Dancers of Tomorrow

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The coming edition of Dancers of Tomorrow includes two ballets with big casts, so it is a real challenge for the costume department of de Theaterschool. Led by Ellen den Bouwmeester, the atelier is responsible for a total of over 170 costumes. ‘Because there are so few stage rehearsals, we never know quite what the whole thing will look like. But if everything works out in the end, it feels like a real ‘gift’’.

The coming edition of Dancers of Tomorrow includes two ballets with big casts, so it is a real challenge for the costume department of de Theaterschool. Led by Ellen den Bouwmeester, the atelier is responsible for a total of over 170 costumes. ‘Because there are so few stage rehearsals, we never know quite what the whole thing will look like. But if everything works out in the end, it feels like a real ‘gift’’.

Although the costume department of de Theaterschool has been doing the costumes for Dancers of Tomorrow for many years, head of the atelier Ellen den Bouwmeester says: ‘This year’s performance is an extra big job for us. That’s mainly due to John Neumeier’s Yondering, for which we’re making forty new costumes, following the patterns and models given to us by Hamburg Ballett. The costumes are in a rustic American style. They remind me a bit of the Amish dress, but then more basic and’, she says laughing, ‘less chaste. The girls wear simple, loose dresses, but then with lots of buttons. The boys’ costumes consist of trousers, a peasant shirt, braces and a military, civil-war-like cap. We had to order the last two items from the United States’.

‘Bournonville’s Le Conservatoire has a cast of 44 dancers: eighteen older girls and eight younger ones, eight tall and eight short boys, a ballet master and a violinist. For the older girls’ tutus, we can use the bodices of the tutus we made previously for Giselle and Les Sylphides, but we are making new skirts, as the Bournonville tutus have to be shorter’.
‘Besides some other ballets with smaller casts, there is also the World Dance piece Dances of the World, which involves seventy pupils and students. However, most of these costumes are being provided by teacher and choreographer Iva Lešic, who is a real specialist in the field of traditional folk dance costumes. But of course we are still responsible for altering the costumes to fit’.

Ellen den Bouwmeester has a long association with the Dutch ballet world. From 1989 to 1999, she was a dresser with Dutch National Ballet, where she also designed the costumes for a few ballets. Since 2003, she has been head of the costume department of de Theaterschool. ‘We work for all the drama and dance courses, but the National Ballet Academy has a special place in my heart. Also because – unlike the other courses – most of the students start training as nine or ten-year-olds. I have great admiration for the discipline and perseverance that’s needed. And it’s nice for us in the costume department that we’re involved with the students for so many years’.
Now that Dancers of Tomorrow is being performed for the first time on the big stage of Dutch National Opera & Ballet, Ellen is even more nervous about what the performances will look like. ‘As we only get to see the students in their costumes on stage and in the right lighting just beforehand, we always have to wait and see if everything’s right and as it should be. But I know from previous years that if we manage it, then it gives enormous satisfaction’.

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