Olivia took us backstage at the Royal Opera House and showed us what she has in her dressing room.
Monday, October 03, 2016
What's in my dressing room? - Royal Ballet soloist Olivia Cowley
Olivia took us backstage at the Royal Opera House and showed us what she has in her dressing room.
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I think it is so fascinating to look inside a dressing room of a dancer. It reveals a little part of their life. Similar to the thought that you can learn a lot about a person by what's in their purse, this article displays a lot about the critical needs of performers, particularly dancers. The main components are broken into: 1) job oriented supplies, 2) personal life, and 3) the business. These three components make up much more than just a dancers life, it is applicable around all art forms. Much of our actions are influenced by our work: what we eat, when we sleep, our clothing, and so on. When you start analyzing our day to day lives the classification of job-oriented activities could define a suprising amount of our day. Ms.Cowley also brought up an excellent point. It is not only enough to be doing your work in the arts, but to constantly be advocating and selling your product. Spending time emailing and developing her website no doubt have influence on her successful career. I think overall this was a very insightful, fun interview which also brought to life many facets of being a member of the arts industry.
As the saying goes, "It's the little things in life." Much like our own bedroom's at home, a dressing room serves as a place of privacy and calm. I feel that decorating a space to make it feel like your own is crucial in being able to truly relax. Just like after a long day of work, there is nothing like coming home, after a long performance I can imagine the feeling rings true when retiring to one's dressing room. The different items in Ms. Cowley's dressing room, and designated spaces for each thing give a lot of insight into the way she operates. Obviously she is organized. I also appreciate her thoughts on taking a moment to spend time on things a little more unrelated to your day to day. For her, it's answering emails, and working on her website. Sure, these activities are related to dance but they don't require point shoes, and a leotard. I'm certain these few minutes she takes to herself prove important and necessary. Her meals, measured drinking cup, numbered hairbrushes, shoes, etc. give a lot of insight into the dicisipline she must have as a dancer. Performing in rep requires more focus than doing the same show 8 times a week. She is really apart of her process. Most importantly, she has a corner for relaxation, and family. She surrounds herself with positivity, which I'm sure proves just as important as her rehearsals.
I want my first thought about this article to be about how professional Ms. Cowley is and about her work ethic but all I can think about is the sheer amount of point shoes that women must have in one room. I also have (and have always had) a lot of thoughts on why it is ballerinas responsibility to spend hours sewing their shoes. I understand that they need them to be a certain way but I have always felt like that was an immense amount of work for someone on top of their already strenuous and time consuming job. All that aside I think that she is incredibly impressive. She is so composed when she speaks, I didn't even need the pictures of the room to know that she had it all together. I love that she spends her time off doing things like working on her website and that the article acknowledges that part of her life. Performers do a lot of their own administrative work on pretty much every level until you become Leonardo Decaprio, so it's good for people to realize that while she is a dancer she is also a business and marketing that business takes time and effort.
I love how Ms. Cowley has created an environment for herself where she can be productive and professional (she answers emails and fixes her shoes at her desk) and an environment where she prepare mentally for her performance. Reading the article, I got a strong sense of the time she spends in her dressing room to motivate herself with family pictures, to calm down before a show, and the take care of all the little details that go into her craft. She is able to make her space personal and intimate while being organized and technical. The life and work of a professional ballerina seems so interesting and this article alludes to a lot of topics I'm sure you could write dozens of articles about. For example the diet, or how many shoes they go through, or how she maintains her website. This article was just a tiny glance at what seems to be a rich career.
This is really neat! I don't know many dancers in my life and so being able to have a backstage peak into Olivia Cowley's ballet scene is quite interesting. As I'm sure many people have commented before, WOW. THE AMOUNT OF POINTE SHOES!! I think it's so peculiar that she sometimes even changes her pointe shoes in between acts. It makes me think of the kind of rituals we as artists (or humans, really) have to keep in place for our craft to be continually produced. For me, I have to first clean my room before I get down to real work. Working in a cluttered space makes me anxious so my productive procrastination is first cleaning, reorganizing my clothing and putting everything back where they belong. I also love how Cowley goes into her environment-- it stresses the importance of having a surrounding that feels good and feeds the creative soul. These are the vital things to producing good work-- feeling good!!!
This article was so enjoyable to read! I guess I have always assumed that a ballet dancer's room would be filled with tulle and jewels and makeup but in truth this is her office. Every item in her room helps to complete a task and create the proper physical and mental space for Cowley to prepare to perform. It is in this space that she prepares her equipment, millions of pairs of pointe shoes by hand. I was also very intrigues by the personal photographs Cowley hangs around her room. I think it is so important to be reminded of where one comes from and who is there to support you along the way. In the stress of a ballet dancers life I can imagine those small reminders of happy and uplifting times will help Cowley to be better at her job. Overall I think this article taught me a lot about the job of a dancer, because it is a job and this is their office.
The spaces we work in as designers say so much about us, but I often forget to consider that this applies to every artist in every work space. The visual, physical elements that arise from a life lived in dedication to one's craft tell such a fascinating story, but they also serve to foster the creativity, productivity, and comfort necessary to our growth as artists. Surrounding oneself with the products of our devotion is such an integral part of how we continue to love that thing which defines our daylight hours. More so, having that space which is ours and ours alone, a space that is somehow private no matter how many eyes look upon it simply because it is defined so distinctly by our personal connection to it, is crucial to our humility. Cowley's ability to so openly share these brief pockets of her sacred space with us are a testament to just how grounded she is as a person, making her seem even more impressive a performance artist (even though the most we see of Cowley herself is her sitting at her computer wearing pointe shoes). To know that there is a human being with five different hair brushes and a sewing kit at her vanity behind all the lace and corsetry is enough to garner a whole other type of respect for the artist inside. What a lovely thing to see the visual space of such a dedicated performer.
This dressing room space really takes shape as a sanctuary through Olivia Cowley's tour of sorts. There is a kind of regulation present that works to ensure success each time Cowley takes the stage. Even the rituals like the Buddha corner and her use of the sewing kit speak to finely honed habits that collectively contribute to her success as a dancer and a performer. Though this article is very brief, the careful curation of images, and Cowley's blunt, to the point contributed explanations form a very cohesive and holistic image about her workspace.
I think one of the most universally applicable lessons here can be taken from when Cowley speaks of her office space. The ability to shift gears, not only as a "multitasking" tool but also as a means of refreshing one's mind, is incredibly useful, allowing productivity in cases where there might now be one. I assume the physicality pairs well with the mental acuity of managing ones image as a business woman.
The life of a ballet dancer is stressful. I just Youtubed Cowley and watched a Royal Ballet rehearsal that they filmed, and wow do they go hard on their performers. Every inch of their form, performance, and body is critiqued constantly to get the perfect dance. The choreographers constantly stopped to manipulate Cowley's body into the right shape. And she truly is amazing, molding her extremely flexible body into whatever the choreography requires. Ballet truly is a feat, and I commend anyone who dedicates their life to it in this way because it is so taxing.
Seeing her dressing room makes me so happy. I love to have my own perfect, cultivated space to escape from when I need to. And her photos and her statues all show the human side of this extremely mechanical and perfect art form. I now understand why she needs a place to escape and be herself, when all day long she is constantly critiqued. I'm sure mentally it can be tolling to undergo criticism all day, and this sanctuary undoubtably helps.
On another note, I have never drank squash and I commend this probably extremely healthy person for doing so. How does one even drink squash it would feel like drinking soup.
I always love seeing what different actors/actresses keep in their dressing rooms. It really shows who they are as people and what they use to keep sane. It is important to keep a space that is unique to yours when you are surrounded by so many different people, because sometimes you just need a place to go back to that is your own. The dressing room is like your own home in the space that you are in. I also didn’t realize how many different pairs of pointe shoes a dancer kept. I do not know a lot about dance and have never worked with dancers who go on pointe, so it was a fascinating fact to learn. I also like that she emphasized how important it was to keep your space clean. I know that I get stressed out when I know all my stuff is just thrown everywhere and there isn’t order to everything. I liked looking into this dressing room and seeing what dancers keep, and how even dressing rooms need to be personalized.
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