Costume change for the ballet eye

Dance fashion fever: From Jewels bling to Sarah Jessica Parker's tutu, it allstarts with us

Houston Ballet members in the "Emeralds" section from "Jewels": Karina Gonzalez,from left, Joseph Walsh and Nozomi Iijima. Choreographed by George Balanchine
Photo by Amitava Sarkar
Nozomi Iijima in the Houston Ballet's production of "Divergence" choreographedby Stanton Welch
Photo by Amitava Sarkar
Whim W'him's Kylie Lewallen and Ty Cheng in "Three Seasons" wearing costumes byMichael Cepress
You know dance fashion is hot when even Sarah Jessica Parker dons a tutu.
Artists of Houston Ballet performing Mark Morris’s "Sandpaper Ballet" withcostumes designed by Isaac Mizrahi.
Photo by Amitava Sarkar
Houston Ballet corps de ballet member Jim Nowakowski in artistic directorStanton Welch’s "Clear" with costumes designed by Michael Kors
Photo by Amitava Sarkar
Houston Ballet Artistic Director Stanton Welch’s "Clear" with costumes designedby Michael Kors. Dancers: Connor Walsh, left, Barbara Bears and artists ofHouston Ballet
Photo by Amitava Sarkar
New York City Ballet Principal Jenifer Ringer looking positively smashing in J.Mendel on the cover of the August issue of "Dance Magazine"

Fashion and dance have been tightly joined in a pas de couture since Louis XIV first put his feet in fifth position. The subject is on my mind because the Houston Ballet is performing George Balanchine's masterpiece Jewels this weekend (7:30 p.m. tonight and Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday) with sumptuous costumes by the legendary Russian designer Barbara Karinska.

Balanchine's bejeweled wonder rocked the ballet house in 1967 when it premiered, and does so again at the Wortham.

Karinska's contribution is as distinct as Balanchine's bold lines. Emeralds feature calf-length tulle skirts conjuring the Romantic era. Rubies' flared skirts give off a sassy, fiery energy, while Diamonds' classical tutus evoke Imperial Russia. Each ballet comes adorned with the corresponding gems. Jewels, considered Balanchine's launch of the revolutionary full-length plotless ballet, may be the quintessential match between choreographer and designer.

Who needs a story when you have this much bling?

"Although numerous designers have created costumes for Jewels, Karinska's are classic," Stanton Welch, Houston Ballet's artistic director, says. The Russian designer re-engineered the shorter, fluffier "power puff" tutu, now a standard in ballet companies around the globe.

Before Karinska turned to ballet, she crafted gowns for nightclub performers and even the wives of the Soviet elite during the Lenin era.

After leaving Russia, Karinska collaborated with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo for Balanchine’s Cotillon. While creating numerous designs for the Ballet Russe, she still found time to dress the burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee. In Hollywood during the 1940s, Karinska costumed such stars as Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Judy Garland and Ginger Rogers, winning a 1948 Academy Award for Joan of Arc.

Eventually, Karinska settled at New York City Ballet as Balanchine's costume muse, where she reigned for decades. Her designs, needlework and fabric choices were known for being both supremely durable and danceable.

Danceability is key when working with a fashion designer, who may not be familiar with the demands of the trade. Welch has always had a keen eye for good design.

"Working with fashion designers is really important and quite common in ballet; It's also exciting," admits Welch, who has designed costumes for several of his own ballets, including, Maninyas and Indigo. "There was a time when all the big names wanted to design for ballet. I even have a photo of my mother (Marilyn Jones) wearing a Christian Dior Black Swan tutu on my mantle."

Welch has had his own dream design teams. Vanessa Leyonhjelm made a deconstructionist statement in Welch's heavy metal ballet Divergence, which featured tutus fashioned out of mesh from air-conditioning ducts with Gaultier-like leather bra cones.

"Working with Vanessa was an extraordinary collaboration," Welch says.

To arrive at the somber tone of his post-9/11 ballet Clear, Welch turned to Michael Kors for minimalist flesh-tone body-clinging look, creating a pared-down, vulnerable atmosphere.

Welch hopes the fashion/ballet connection is making a comeback. New York City Ballet's Jenifer Ringer looked ravishing in the J. Mendel gown on the August Dance Magazine cover, while Valerie Gladstone's story chronicled the fashion pairings of such legends as Martha Graham and Halston, Twyla Tharp with Norma Kamali, Jorma Elo with Ralph Rucci, among numerous others.

Fashion action continues locally with Dominic Walsh Dance Theater dancer Rachel Meyer wearing a silk and chiffon gown from Chloe Dao’s Mini Collection when she hits the red carpet to pick up her Princess Grace Award. The dress features a black and pale pink lattice work bodice, an asymmetrical shoulder, with a low back and open sides. Dao describes the dress as "tough, cool and sexy."

In step

As dancers are young, mostly tall and gorgeous, is it any wonder that no art form has influenced fashion more than dance?

Check out the fashion-forward crop at the New York City Ballet. Stunning. Who wouldn't want to dress up like these stylish people?

Ballet flats, over-sized bags, wrap-around sweaters and skirts, lace-up shoes are some of the better crossover choices. Flashdance-style torn T-shirts, leg warmers, booty shorts and tutu-shaped skirts should have never left the studio. Drew Jacoby, the leggy ballerina of Jacoby & Pronk, last seen in Houston wowing Dance Salad fans, offered her opinions on the best and worst of dance fashions on her Dance Pulp blog.

She wasn't too thrilled with Bjork's feathered swan dress for the Academy Awards.

I know it's a scary thing to get fashion advice from a gal who wears sweater sets, but listen up beautiful, young Hollywood things, only ballerinas should wear tutus. OK, maybe Natalie Portman gets away with it in Black Swan, but that's only after logging in some serious hours at the barre. Even Sarah Jessica Parker couldn't pull it off during the opening credits of Sex and The City, and don't get me started on Lara Flynn Boyle's misguided tulle for the 2003 Golden Globe Awards.

If I see one more middle schooler in booty shorts I will call your mother. Those are for your jazz classes dear ones.

Welch agrees that there's a constant flow of fashion ideas from the studio to the street.

"We were just remarking that the men seem to be wearing torn T-shirts again. We used to do that. I notice a strong dance influence at the gym and in the Olympics," Welch says. "But really, I don't know what people are wearing these days on the street because I spend all my time with the dancers who are making the trends."

Listen to dancer Olivier Wevers, artistic director of Seattle-based upstart troupe Whim W'Him, who I recently wrote about along with Melody Herrera in my dance vacations story.

"Ballet is constantly creating new visuals that are relevant to the period we live in, so is fashion," says Wevers, who is also a principal at Pacific Northwest Ballet and a frequent collaborator with designers. "Both have classics that won't ever go out of style."

Jewels is just that, a timeless classic.

See Karinska's designs and hear Stanton Welch talk about Balanchine's Jewels:

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Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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