Costume designing course in Ahmedabad

Theatre is mostly associated with acting, emoting, and dialogues. Rarely do we see emphasis on costume or set designing in theatre.

Fanatika Theatre Group, a wing of Alliance Francaise, is organising a theatre workshop on costume designing till July 22 at Gujarat Sahitya Parishad.

The workshop, which began on July 18, is conducted by two costume and set designing professionals - Elsa Bourdin and Cassandre Boy - from France.

Talking about the importance of costume designing in theatre, Bourdin said, "In its most primitive form, costumes consisted of exaggerated prop masks. Costume designing evolved as the theatre performances and characterizations became more intricate."

He further said, "We wanted to encourage the techniques involved in making a costume. It is more like an interaction with one's own self. How can one use his/her resources and not think about the expansiveness of everything? Sets or costumes need not be over the top but it should be something that brings out questioning and opens the mental space."    

Boy said, "Here the participants are from different backgrounds and the emphasis of the workshop is not to impose our designs on students, but instead bring out a kind of randomness in them."

Chintan Pandya, the founder of Fanatika, feels that such workshops are helpful for artists as theatre is a melting pot of all art forms. "Our eldest member of theatre workshop is 75. I think not many people actually concentrate on costume designing these days."