Why Is Costume Important?

This panel discussion, co-hosted by Rosie Whiting from SBTD and Catherine Kodichek co-chair of CiTEA, will be a celebration of Costume Design as a discipline in its own right. We will be discussing the importance of Costume in live performance and questioning why the roles of Costume and Set Designer are rarely hired separately. This conversation will be an opportunity to explore the problems that this undervaluing of Costume creates and to discuss how we can make positive changes moving forward. The panel discussion will be followed by a Q&A and you can submit questions that you would like to be asked via the order form when you register.

**There will also be a chance to continue this discussion when SBTD joins CiTEA’s Happy Hour on Thursday 20th May at 7pm.

Hosts:

Rosie Whiting is a Costume Designer working primarily in Contemporary Dance and Ballet. In 2019 her designs for “99 Moves” by Zoi Dimitriou were selected to be shown as part of “Staging Places: UK Design for Performance 2015-2019” at Prague Quadrennial and at The V&A Museum in London. She is also a committee member for The Society of British Designers and co-host of Breakfast Bodies: Laid Back Life Drawing.

@rosie_whiting

Catherine Kodicek is a costume designer and supervisor who was the Head of Costume for 13 years at the Young Vic Theatre in London, overseeing up to 20 shows a year with directors and designers from the very start of their careers to international names. She has spent much of her career fighting for greater recognition and pay for costume workers, and most recently looking at the underlying gender bias in the industry and how it affects costume workers. She is a member of BECTU and co-chair of Costume in Theatre, Entertainment and Arts (CiTEA). She is also vice-chair of the Theatrical Guild and writes a regular column for The Stage.

@catherinekodichek

Confirmed Panellists:

Natalie Pryce

As Set and Costume Designer, theatre credits include: 846 Live (Greenwich + Docklands International Festival); Me for the World (Young Vic); Ducklings (Manchester Royal Exchange); The Tide (UK Tour); Not Now Bernard (Unicorn Theatre). As co-Set and Costume Designer: For All the Women Who Thought They Were Mad (Stoke Newington Town Hall).

As Costume Designer, theatre credits include: Ragtime (ArtsEd); Tales of the Turntable (Southbank Centre). As Costume Supervisor: The Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare’s Globe).

Film credits include: My Name is Leon, Myrtle, Fourteen Fractures; Fellow Creatures, Swept Under Rug.

Natalie is a set decorator trainee through the Talking Point Mentoring Network, and a costume trainee with Trainee Finder, both for film and television.

@natlaurap

Igor

Igor is a Freelance Production Manager, PM for Grange Park Opera and Associate Head of Production for Elliott & Harper Productions. From 2013 to 2017 he was Technical Director at The Young Vic, during this period the Young Vic won multiple Olivier and Tony awards and transferred several productions to the West End and New York. He is also a Trustee at English Touring Theatre.

Recent and forthcoming productions include: Death of a Salesman (EHP – Piccadilly), Company (EHP – Gielgud), Heisenberg (EHP – Wyndhams); The Boy in the Dress (RSC); Death of a Salesman, Yerma, Measure for Measure (Young Vic) A View from The Bridge (Wyndhams); A Streetcar Named Desire (Young Vic & St Ann’s Warehouse); Sweeney Todd (Adelphi); The Audience (Gielgud); Far Away, Appropriate, The Berberian Sound Studio (Donmar); Manor, Absolute Hell, The Magistrate, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (NT)

@igorprodman

Nadia Malik

Nadia is the Programme Director for the Performance Courses at London College of Fashion, UAL. She has previously been Course Leader for BA Costume Design and Making at Nottingham Trent University and Costume With Textiles at the University of Huddersfield, Head of Wardrobe at the University of Essex and lectured at various other universities.

Nadia is the Reviews Editor (Exhibitions and Events) for the journal Studies in Costume and Performance, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a committee member of the Society of British Theatre Designers and a PhD candidate at Aalto University, Helsinki. She holds a BA in Textile Design from Nottingham Trent University and an MA in Costume Design for Performance from London College of Fashion, UAL.

Nadia’s design work has encompassed new and classic writing, opera, folk and contemporary dance, experimental site-specific devised work and live art, including international festivals. With a collaborative approach to performance devising, her work explores the human body, movement, and how costume-led design practice can engage audiences with performance. She has also curated and produced costume events.

Khadifa Wong

Director and producer. Before working in film and theatre as a creative, Khadifa trained at the iconic London Studio Centre in all aspects of dance. After 10 years as a Dancer she moved to New York to further study acting at TVI Actors Studio. Her acting training continued at Identity School of Drama in London.

On her return to London, frustrated by the lack of opportunities and abundance of stereotypes for performers of colour, Khadifa realised she could make more of a difference behind the scenes and she formed her production company to help increase inclusion and erase stereotypes.

She divides her time working in film, theatre and education.

@khadifawong

You will be available to join the Zoom meeting via Eventbrite and an email with the details to join via the Zoom app will also be sent to you on the day of the event.

If you are unable to attend a recording and transcript will be made available after the event.

We look forward to seeing you there!