I Burn, I Burn...

My past few weeks have been tied up with the usual work at the Rep, and also with my latest design project. Ellen Rosand, a Dept of Music Prof recently received a grant from the Mellon Foundation which she has used to fund the Yale Baroque Opera Project. Their inaugural piece Ardo, Ardo: Montiverdi In Motion's costumes were designed by yours truly. I ended up using the abstract paintings of the music director Richard Lalli for color inspiration, much to his delight. So over the course of two days many white clothes purchased from the Dharma Trading Co. ended up in a dye pot and here's the result...Now I'm inspired to start dyeing sock yarn. I had forgotten how much I had enjoyed dyeing until I worked on this project. The picture above is Ariadne from the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur in the Montiverdi piece Lamento L'Arianna. The Yale Schola Cantorum singers (dressed in black) created the physical labyrinth, Theseus unwound his ball of red yarn and left his end on the edge of the stage. Ariadne enters with her end and sings her aria, eventually she finds the other end with no one there, betrayed and heartbroken, she dies. I love the yarn amongst the people labyrinth.

Photos by Ethan Heard