From Off the Rack to Off the Wall - Isaac Mizrahi, Liz Prince design costumes for dance productions

Dance Magazine, Oct, 2000 by Kate Mattingly

Two dance costume designers who rewrite the rules

A dance costume designer has to be wildly whimsical on Tuesday and Martha Stewart-practical every other day of the week. Whimsical, to give shape and color to dancing frogs and dying swans and fairy princesses; practical, to design costumes that wear like iron and look like a million bucks while costing ... well, a whole lot less. Two cases in point: Isaac Mizrahi and Liz Prince.

When Mizrahi says, "I don't like to actually finalize costumes until I see the choreography," he has good reason. Dancers are sylphs and princes and swamp creatures and people in the street--but they are athletes, too.

"I go to rehearsal and I think, `How are they ever going to wear anything?'" Mizrahi says. "The partnering and all is so violent. They're on their knees one second and they're spinning. They do penche arabesque and every seam just rips in my head."

Such is the dilemma for designers accustomed to dressing pedestrians: When they enter a rehearsal studio, the rules change. Watching a dancer do a port de bras can be a nightmare: "They reach farther than I thought humanly possible," says Mizrahi.

Mizrahi, the subject of the 1995 documentary Unzipped, began collaborating with Mark Morris, who appears in the film, in 1992. "Honestly, the secret to our collaboration is my incredible awe when I see his work and actually see music come to life," says Mizrahi. "It's exactly what music would look like if it could dance--in the way that Balanchine had music come to life. It's shocking. The way he accents music is always so thrilling ... No one knows as much about music as Mark. I challenge you."

Mizrahi credits his mother for his own introduction to dance: "She took me to see Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, and my sister took me to see Martha Graham. I remember the first time I saw Graham I was like, `What the hell is this?' I was 8 years old." It piqued his interest.

"I studied piano and took singing lessons for years," he says. "I went to the performing arts high school and was an actor. A lot of my background was in the theater." Last spring, Mizrahi incorporated these performing skills into Richard Move's "Martha at Mother" series. As host of one of the performances, he delivered a witty, campy monologue on Martha Graham's passion for costumes. Move, in turn, has directed Mizrahi in Les Mizrahi, a one-man show set to open next month in New York City.

Mizrahi credits Morris with knowing when to collaborate: "He wouldn't ask me to do something that I wouldn't have a lot of fun doing. He asked me to do Platee because he knew what he was looking for. He had a vision in his head. He knew how I could fulfill that gesture for him." The Morris-directed version of Jean-Philippe Rameau's opera, last spring at the New York City Opera, turned out to be the giddiest costume event of the season. Joan Acocella, dance critic for The New Yorker and author of the biography Mark Morris, says of Platee, "Because it's a swamp fantasy, it's an invitation to go wild. The costumes are simply marvelous ... and witty in their cultural references." Acocella cites the friendship between Mizrahi and Morris as one reason their collaborations work so well.

"They trust and respect one another," she observes. "There is a real kinship between their visions: They're both classicists, but they're not conservative, a kind of erudition with real boldness. In both there's an element of sweet fantasy and each has the tendency to set it off in the other."

Describing Mizrahi's designs for Morris's Mosaic and United, she creates a medley of adjectives: "... very beautiful costumes, a little Asian, wonderful tunics with pants, and beautiful Indian or Thai colors."

Liz Prince makes costumes for a gamut of choreographers and companies--from Jane Comfort to Doug Varone, from White Oak to Pacific Northwest Ballet. In 1990, she received a Bessie Award for her elegant and at times outrageous designs.

Says Varone, "As a dancemaker, I see visuals in terms of space and lighting. Costume is something that, I know when it's wrong, but I'm not always sure what direction to move in immediately. Liz is a wonderful artist. I'll say, `These are my ideas of the work,' and she'll go away and come back with designs. It's nice to have someone open the door to possibilities."

In demand across the country, Prince costumes approximately two shows a month. Her process begins with watching: "At times, I look at what they're wearing in rehearsal. From my own performing, I know you want to be comfortable on stage."

Varone agrees. With street clothes, he says, "we choose them because they make us look attractive and we feel comfortable in them. It shouldn't be any different on stage."

Prince's designs work well because she is in tune with dancers' needs. Watching a piece of choreography, she considers: "How much contact do people have with each other? Are they ever upside down? What's stylish or trendy so the costume doesn't look old after six months? How much is the costume going to be toured?" Based on these observations, she sets to work.