February 16th,  2018

What kind of clothes do dancers wear? Do they use special clothes when they dance? Do the fabrics influence both their body and their movements or not? Does the shape of their costume influence their presence on the stage? I spoke with four dancers to find out what they think about it.

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Andreea had never imagined herself a dancer. She never enjoyed sports and she hasn’t been encouraged by her family to be creative.

“Hazard played an important part in discovering dance. I was a student of psychology in my last year, licensed in creative therapies, and got into a dance therapy module. What I’ve experienced there has made me suddenly quit psychology and experience dance. “

The training was difficult. Andreea had constant muscle aches, her ankles twisted, and she had some tangled vertebrae. After this phase, she understood what it meant to be an independent artist without any certainty when it came to future projects. It was hard, but she didn’t think she could do anything else.

“People who don’t dance, actually dance. Dance has nothing unreal and isn’t learned. It’s independent of knowing or not knowing how to dance. We think we’re not dancing if we don’t do it in an organized setting, but I think we dance all the time and everywhere. Because dance has to do with the everyone’s need of expressing themselves.”

Andreea’s projects do not look very similar to each other. Sometimes she works three hours a day, sometimes all day long. The dance-wear is comfortable and light, with fabrics that can let the skin breathe. She buys them from second-hand stores, Decathlon or athletes’ stores. Some are quite cheap, some extravagant.

She doesn’t like to wear layers and chooses to rehearse wearing pants, a shirt and a pair of socks. She is attached to the clothes she likes to look at and to the ones that make her feel good when she moves. Clothes are important for dancing, to extend, to support or change the choreographic concept. For a show, she chooses her costume during the last phase of planning. She has a preference for neutral, minimal or normal clothes, even on stage.

Andreea believes that through dance she has learned a lot. Once in a few years, obsessions about dance change and this changes the way she relates to her body, dance and clothes.

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Photo credit: Alina Usurelu, Mihai Tutu, Dani Ioniță, Roland Vacsi