First Month: 31 days of skinny jeans + some costume designs.

Today I celebrate my fist month with this blog. I have posted every day since I started it on January First.

I celebrate today by sharing pictures and videos that feature some of my costume designs for dance performances (and, of course, with what I am wearing today too. look below).

As you can see, my take on dance costumes is all about two things: First -and most important- the fact that my biggest priority is to celebrate the human silhouette. And I do that by designing body fitting costumes.  They need to embrace the body lines.  They need to allow the movements to flow freely and to showcase the flexibility of the dancer -as an athlete and as a performer-.

The second factor that is key in my designs is theatricality.  People go to the theatre to see a show.  And every aspect of the show should be inspiring.

I need to share these results with my parter in crime for many of these projects: Maritza Navarro. My dear friend and co-choreographer in almost all the pieces shown in this post.

Also big thanks to L.A. Unbound for allowing me to create for them and be part of their shows.  Another big thanks to Chiabella James for taking such amazing pictures. Additional pictures by the multitalented Christopher Kinder, who also has all my gratitude.

The first piece I’m featuring here is Brighton Beach.  Set in a beach somewhere in the 40’s. We used found items in places like thrifts stores combined with new pieces from American Apparel. Everything was in black and white to underline the nostalgic feel of the piece.

The second piece is Pussyfooting. A really fun, over the top piece that we created as an experiment.  The piece starts with the dancers inside spandex bags and later reveal white unitards designed to glow in the dark.

The following pictures are stills from my feature film Sunset Junction, all by Christopher Kinder:

The next pictures are form a piece that Maritza and I choreographed for a Holiday show using music inspired by the movie Nightmare Before Christmas.  At the beginning of the piece the female character grew and grew -inspired by the growing tree from The Nutcracker- to later reveal two creatures wrapped in golden spandex. Ridiculously fun piece. The execution of the dress was by Christopher Kinder. A true show stopper!

The next piece was “Sugarplums from Space” for the L.A. Unbound  production of the Nutcracker. We painted the unitards with spray paint and created the head pieces with foam, sculpting by hand one “horn” at the time. The result was spectacular!

These are other photos from that production of The Nutcracker.  The Chinese Tops was a choreography I did with my friend Felicia Guzman. The piece was called “tipsy topsy”

The statues (for the intro of the show) were a collaboration with Christopher Kinder, who did all the painting by hand (picture below)

AND WHAT I AM WEARING TODAY? I kept it simple but fun:

To finish here are just three more pictures of costumes for dance performances I have made through the years (Waka Waka was a great piece choreographed by my friend Juan Toledo. The last picture is from the first costume I designed and hand painted for L.A. Unbound’s first show ever):