When the men of the Paul Taylor Dance Company take the stage at Lincoln Center for the premiere of resident choreographer Lauren Lovette’s latest work Echo on 2 November, they’ll be wearing costumes by Zac Posen. Over his many years on the runway, Posen rarely made clothes for men, but the real challenge of the assignment was designing for their movement.
“I think choreography is one of the bravest mediums because you’re really raw,” Posen says. “Dance as an art breaks down a lot of barriers. Human movement really can’t be faked. You’re fully committed.” That means, he goes on to explain, “You have to make a piece of clothing that can flip upside down, slide, and experience extreme wear and tear. It’s not walking a runway.”
The concept for the new costumes came from one of Posen’s earliest fashion shows, which featured pieces with snaps that allowed their wearers to change the shape of a garment’s draping. It was spring/summer 2003, and a young Delfine Belfort and Liya Kebede modelled a fit and flare dress and a nipped waist jacket, both with a 1940s flavour.
The stage pieces are stripped back in comparison; in essence, they’re large snap belts that can be added to or subtracted from as the dance progresses. A non-narrative piece, its themes revolve around male identity and gender roles. “Interestingly,” Posen said, “the costumes have a classical Roman frieze look, quite strong with a warrior quality.”
Lovette is the Company’s first-ever resident choreographer, a role created in the wake of Taylor’s passing by his successor. And this isn’t the first time that Posen has collaborated with her. In September 2019, when she was still a principal dancer and choreographer at the New York City Ballet, they teamed up for her work “The Shaded Line”. That dance was, in some way, Echo’s inverse, a modern dance piece that explored female identity.
After shuttering his label two months later, Posen’s focus turned to one-of-a-kind commissions and special projects. Another difference between designing for private clients and designing for performance, he explains, is the time frame. “Designing for dance, you don’t get to see a finished performance. You have to start thinking about it as it builds.” And as for fittings? “They had to be kind of instinctual and impromptu, as the dancers were doing their run-throughs.”
For tickets to the 2 November performance, visit paultaylordance.org.
