Performance is essential for WOW

The World of Wearable Arts opens in Wellington tomorrow night, showcasing the amazing creations of New Zealanders and designers from around the world. Rebecca Fox got a sneak peak behind the scenes recently.

Celebrating people’s stories. That is how Leonie Trathen and Malia Johnston describe their job at the World of Wearable Arts.

The annual celebration of all things creative opens tomorrow in Wellington and, for the first time in many years, no designers from Otago have made the finals.

But Trathen is sure it is only a blip. She has been part of the WOW team since 1990, starting out as a model before taking on the job of looking after garments backstage and then managing the wardrobe. Johnson, who joined the team in 2001, is show director responsible for bringing the wearable competition to the stage.

Between the two of them they have years of experience at wrangling what has become one of the biggest theatre and dance extravaganzas — described as broadway meets Cirque Du Soleil — to hit Wellington stages.

On opening night, the production calls for 400 people including 30 models, 40 garments, about 100 performance artists such as dancers, aerialist, singers, and a choir, and various back stage people from hair and makeup to technical staff making sure the props and moving parts work to order.

Prior to getting to that stage there has been 18 months of work, as the team of around 22 look to wow its audience yet again. This year they selected the theme "Dream Awake" and have created a new stage using new technology which is allowing them to bring more garments into the audience.

When the garments come in from around the world — there are 90 finalists this year in a variety of categories such as Geometric Abstraction, Crazy Curiosities of the Creature Carnival, and Natural World — the models selected after auditioning are matched to garments to find the best fit to showcase the garment and bring it to life.

For Trathen it is also important to do justice to the garments people have painstakingly created. Some come with some quite emotional stories behind them and are inspired by people’s struggles and tell quite human stories.

Johnston says they then begin to design the music from scratch with the composer moulding the soundtrack to match the theme and the garments.

They encourage designers to incorporate tech into their garments and push the boundaries of wearable tech that also needs to be incorporated into the performance.

"That’s exciting and challenging. It has opened up a whole new platform. It’s not about static wearable art, it’s meant to be worn and come to life."

Each piece has its own choreography and its own time in the spotlight.

It is the collision of art and theatricality that Johnston loves. This year there will be 27 dancers on stage and a 28-person choir, as well as circus artists to create a magical performance around the garments.

"We want to push boundaries, every show is unique. The challenge is to do better each year, to do the best we can."