The Fish Costumes: The challenge in designing the gold and red fish costumes for the ballet was to come up with a solution to please three different people involved in the production: the Director, the Choreographer and the Illustrator of the book. They did not want masks and wanted the dancers to be classically oriented. Everyone agreed on my suggestion to use a bathing cap style design for the head to cover the dancer's hair that would otherwise distract from the character. I added a piece of fabric from a wire attached to the top of the cap to resemble a fish fin.

Next, it was decided fabric would hang from the dancer's arms for fins, but could not look like angel or bird wings. The illustrator wanted it to shine and be sheer. I decided on a fin design that would extend to cover only half of the arm held on with a sheer stretch flesh colored fabric attached to the fin like a half-sleeve. I had to make the unitards (one-piece stretch suit) as they were unavailable in red and gold from catalogues.

The Scales: The finishing touch was to hand paint scales on the tops of the unitards and on the caps. Because I had fourteen fish costumes that needed scales I decided the easiest route would be to make a rubber stamp of one scale and stamp all the scales onto the costumes. I used extra thick foamie, cut out the shape, and glued it on a small scrap of wood to make the stamp. I used a brush and applied thin black fabric paint to the stamp each time I stamped a scale. I stretched the unitard over a piece of wood while I applied the scales. Finally, to bring the scales alive, I highlighted each scale using a paint brush with a color that coordinated with the fins. I was lucky to find sheer fin fabric that incorporated two shades of color; red and gold for the red fish and teal blue and gold for the gold fish. Since I didn't want the fins to be bound with a distracting hem, I used a stop-fray solution to paint on the edges of the red/gold fins and a running zig-zag stitch for the blue/gold fins, since they were different kinds of fabric.

The final touch was to paint fin vein lines on the fabric, again using the rubber stamp technique. The blue/gold fins were a stiffer material so I could finish them by applying a gold glitter dimensional paint that was applied on each line on each side of the fabric. The fins are held to the unitard on either side by two small narrow strips of Velcro. The fin fabric cannot be washed and has to be removed when the unitards are washed.

A lot of steps to deal with, but I am pleased with the final product and can't wait to see the fish "swim-dance" in the production.

Flying: The four silver fish are another challenge, because they are going to fly on wires. I have to design a silver tunic to go over the unitard to hide the harness that holds the wire that will suspend them. More on that later. . .

The Sea Dragon King: The Sea Dragon snake had to be very long like the illustration that Rebecca Guay has in the book. I decided it had to be a puppet held on high poles similar to the Chinese Dragons you see at Chinese New Year celebrations. The mouth was made to open and close with a small pole that attached under the lower jaw. Four dancers will be needed to carry the four poles. The front dancer will have two poles; one to hold the head up and one to work the lower jaw. So, you see dancers have to be trained to do all sorts of things besides dance when it comes to creative productions such as Shim Chung. The pole puppet is fifteen feet long.

The illustrator, Rebecca Guay went to the fabric store with me and picked out the quilted red Chinese designed fabric and the gold for the dragon's "fin-wings." It was difficult to engineer, designing supports for the body that poles could be attached to in four spots. The fin-wings had to be wired in key places so they will stand erect on top of the body or stick out strategically on either side of the head. I edged them in black to replicate Rebecca's style of finely outlining her illustrations. Because of the large size of the Fine Arts Center Concert Hall (holds 2000), my lines had to be bold in order for them to show from a distance. The size of the hall makes a difference in how costumes are painted as delicate lines will not show from a distance.

I cannot find a plastic container large enough (the largest sold is 50 gallons) to store the sea dragon so I guess it will have to be transported in large garbage bags. The poles are transported separately with screws and wing nuts that attach them to the puppet.
There are lots of problems and details to figure out in the world of costume construction.

Thank you Therese!