RUSALKA- costume for stage performance
RUSALKA
A costume-led reinterpretation of Dvořák’s opera
Dvořák’s water nymph, who trades her voice for a doomed love, is relocated to Nazi Germany. The Prince becomes a general of the regime; Rusalka, a contortionist and escapologist in a circus of outcasts. Her longing to cross into his world becomes a study of confinement and the violence of trying to belong somewhere built to exclude you.
The transformation is told entirely through costume. Her confinement is literal: a high-shine black PVC gown engineered like a restraint buckled, strapped, the head sealed beneath a latex cap that erases face and voice. Beneath it, flashes of red signal the living thing trapped inside the shell.
The garment is made to be shed. She works the fastenings loose like an escapologist slipping a bind, until the glossy carapace collapses and a vast red form swells up around her. Water, blood, rebirth. Costume here is dramaturgy, the story told in a single act: a body freeing itself.