Animal Ball

Last year one of my New Year's resolutions was that I wanted to work on a non-business creative project with friends.  Something fun and not my own.  So it was very fortuitous when my friend Tiana Hux contacted me last spring about designing the costumes for her new show, Animal Ball.  My good friends Judy Bolton & Sarah Borealis were signed on to perform in the show, which made it even more fun.

                                          

Sarah Borealis as the vixen & Judy Bolton as the bunny

Tiana is a rapper and performance artist, a wildly talented individual and an old friend from New Orleans days.  She asked me to look at Hummel figurines and the illustrations of Maurice Sendak--one of my all-time favorite illustrators.   

This is right up my alley.  People dressed as animals or turning into animals, dark fairy tales, creepiness, cuteness.  

I spent the summer working on the costumes.  I designed head to toe looks and worked with Elizabeth Fisher to make them from scratch.  

Tiana as the dog/wolf & Judy the bunny

Elizabeth made the bunny costume and Tiana's sporty lederhosen.  Marcus Bronson, who makes masks and costumes and music, made the amazing headpieces based on my drawings.  He also created the music for Tiana's show.

 owl headpiece by Marcus Bronson

This was such a fun project.  Each character has gloves or mittens with hand-stitched vinyl claws and fur.  

Tiana's dog/wolf and the owl character have hand-painted fur and feather leotards.  This was a great chance to use the "marks" idea I was making over the summer, which will be a major part of the new collection I'm working on right now.

There were also "puppets" that the characters used to tell parts of the story as they danced.  These are the felt shapes you see on some of the costumes.  They are based on the idea of a felt board.

The owl has a feather cape with gorgeous coque feathers generously donated by Abby Arauz and the Feather Place

Tiana is hoping to take this show on the road in the next year so hopefully it will be coming to a city near you.  There will also be a video out sometime soon.

These pictures were taken by the fabulous Shannon Brinkman at the premiere of Animal Ball at Preservation Hall in New Orleans