Artful dissection

You’re a deft hand with a paintbrush or sculpture, and you’re very experienced in directing as well as photography. What’s your favourite

medium to create in? Ooh that’s a hard one, isn’t it? Most of the time I’m a painter but I suppose I quite like to photograph because I get to work with people. And I get to make sets and pick models and dress them up. I like the collaboration. How do you choose your models? With these girls it was really important to present a new New Zealand, one that’s more multicultural. Not all of my models are professional models. I quite like to get a different sort of look to what’s fashionable at the time. So it was time for the women to have the spotlight? Of course it was originally influenced by the Me Too movement. This time I kind of wanted the girls to have the armbands and the power, you know, concocting a plot. Tell us about

the costume and the clothes you chose.

I wanted something feminine, but also some of the outfits were a bit androgynous as well. I wanted a female sexuality which is sort of sexy and not actually giving too much away. And I liked the period setting with a lot of furs – I like putting traditional and contemporary elements together, hence the really industrial rubber gloves. Furs and

taxidermied animals make an appearance in a lot of your work. Is this a statement

about those industries? It’s more about

TEAMWORK (PART II) 2019. FRAMED PHOTOGRAPH, ARCHIVAL PIGMENT ON PHOTORAG ULTRASMOOTH PAPER

This innovative exhibition is a collaboration between artist Heather Straka, Mod’s Hair owner Julianne Liebeck, Jonathan Smart Gallery, and SCAPE Public Art. View Dissected Parlour at Mod’s Hair. creating a diorama. I was brought up making them at primary school and whenever you went to a museum there always used to be these fascinating dioramas which were a sort of ‘fake realness’. They captured things in the middle of certain acts. It’s more just emphasising the idea of recreating reality with something that’s fake. The red

armbands give a bit of a fascist vibe. Is that

intentional? I think as soon as you see an armband that’s what you do think. But then it’s also the Red Cross, and then there’s also the red of communism versus democracy. I created Dissected Parlour around the time of the Hong Kong riots and that inspired me to do Molotov cocktails with the Pegasus Bay wine bottles. It’s about a power dynamic. People have described some of

your works as controversial. Is controversy

an inherent part of creating art? I think to provoke discussion, especially on the issues of the time, is one of the core functions of art. And where things can get in trouble is as time goes on and politics go on, work then moves out of its original context. What

inspired you to display Dissected Parlour at

Mod’s Hair? I know [Mod’s owner] Julianne Liebeck from a year when we spent a lot of time together at the opening week of the Venice Biennale art exhibition. But it was actually Deborah McCormick from SCAPE Public Art who brought us together for this exhibition. It’s quite nice to get works out of

‘A salon’s a little bit like your lounge, you know? It’s designed to keep you comfortable.’

the gallery. It’s nice to enjoy something, to just sit down and lounge around in a space. Because a salon’s a little bit like your lounge, you know? It’s designed to keep you comfortable for quite a few hours while you’re there, so you spend more time just looking. What is Dissected Parlour saying about women? The girls are trying to change the status quo. In Teamwork (part II) they’re ripping down some of the colonial constructs and setting fire to the piano, while in Thing of the Past the boys are trying to extinguish the piano and resurrect the status quo. And of course you’ve got the gender neutral model just screaming on top of the piano. So I had a real play around with gender and stereotypes. Can you tell us

about the technical aspect of how you

made these photos look so distinctive? It’s mostly done in camera with some post production. We built the set in a shed on the farm rather than having our models on a green screen. I think it gives you a different

HEATHER STRAKA (LEFT) AND AVERILL MOSER-RUST (RIGHT)

THE SCREAM 2019. FRAMED PHOTOGRAPH, ARCHIVAL PIGMENT ON PHOTORAG ULTRASMOOTH PAPER look – I quite like the slight grunginess. And we used an extensive amount of lights and there were also smoke machines and things like that. The smoke is particularly striking in The Scream. That was all done in one shot. We actually had the smoke machine to one side and I got the model to stand up. I said get on there and just pretend you’re Elton John and scream. Tell us about the model

dressed in your clothes holding the dog. Is it

your dog too? Yes, I would have liked to get my dog Mila in Teamwork (part II) as well but have you tried to get dogs to behave themselves for a photo? Mila is not too bad but you’ve got lighting rigs, smoke machines… What’s your favourite piece in Dissected Parlour? Probably Teamwork (part II), because that was one of the original ideas I’d percolated on for a very long time. And also Reverie, the little boy, which is very much a relevant image in Covid time: youth looking out at the crumbling world. What artists are you interested in right now? Gregory Crewdson. He’s an amazing artist who did a lot of big photographic setups. And there’s a Russian collective called AES+F that does some amazing video works. What don’t people know about you? I ride a dirt bike. I probably shouldn’t, because it would be really bad if I broke my arm, being a painter.

What’s your favourite thing to do in

Christchurch? Catch up with friends. I used to live in Christchurch and I would still be there, it’s just that I’ve got family up north. And your favourite place in New Zealand? Central Otago. You know, why wouldn’t you?

What’s on the cards for the rest of

the year? I’m dreaming up my next show now. I am looking at the 1950s idea of people creating exotic themes in their own homes, at a moment when we can’t travel but we let our minds travel. heatherstraka.com Read our full Q&A with Heather at cityscape.co.nz

RNZB head of costume Donna Jefferis has been brainstorming, sketching, mocking up and making costumes for the end-of-year performance of The Sleeping Beauty.

She’s been let loose a little on this one; it’s not a standard period piece, it’s magical. A fantasy. She expects a swirling mass of colour, with big skirts filling the stage. And that vision doesn’t come easy – the work starts about a year out. “Once a show has been selected, I work with the choreographer or director to gauge what they’re doing with the story,” she says. “They’ll have a vision of where and when it’ll be set. I take some of that and add my own spin; it’s a collaborative process.”

Those sketched designs are finalised six months before production, and Donna gets to work with her team to sew costumes for all 169 dancers in the show, each of whom has at least five pieces to their costume. Four permanent staff and a few freelancers work in her costume workroom. Donna and one other make patterns, sewing up prototypes in calico or basic fabrics. Then the team cut and sew. “We’ve even got someone working just on costume props – like hats, armour and jewellery,” she says.

Donna’s skills come from a lifetime of creativity. “I’ve always sewed with Mum,” she explains. While she was at university, she had a job at Downstage Theatre, which morphed into working with their costumes. She then moved with her husband to America and did a Masters in Fine Arts in Theatrical Design, and started working in theatre after she returned to New Zealand.

While Royal New Zealand Ballet does a lot of original ballets, needing costumes to be invented

PHOTO: ROSS BROWN

‘You get a lot of scope to be creative, but you do run up against some weird things.’

out of thin air, the ballet company also performs classic pieces, like The Sleeping Beauty. It’s still a re-invention challenge, Donna says, no matter how well-known the show is. “You get a lot of scope to be creative, but you do run up against some weird things,” she says. “Aurora is always in pink, for example. But we’ve had some good challenges in this. Aurora’s suitors are from different parts of the world – there’s a Swedish guy, a French guy and an English guy. Because we’re not in a specific period, we have to consider what our audience will read as recognisably Swedish, French or English these days.”

Because the ballet isn’t set in a specific time period, Donna could be inventive with the well-known characters. “Carabosse and her henchman are going to be fabulous, with these big alien headdresses,” she says. “Traditionally the evil fairies are old and ugly, but our one is more along the lines of Maleficent, she’s a fabulous kind of evil.” Aurora’s birthday outfit is another highlight: 650 flowers adorn the bust, sleeves and skirt, and every single one had to be hand-sewn.

One thing people don’t realise about ballet costumes is the logistics of washing. Donna’s team have to make washable underpinnings in every costume – the dancers are doing huge amounts of physical activity, and you can’t have them performing for six weeks in something that can’t be washed, no matter how ornate it is. But Donna knows the tricks. “Often, the sleeves of a costume are attached to the underpinnings, not the outerwear. It looks like they’re wearing a jacket, but the

DONNA JEFFERIS

arms won’t be attached, which allows for more movement, and it means the sleeves can be washed.”

Some of her secrets are more glamorous. “People would be surprised about the amount of money we spend on sparkles,” she says, adding in a whisper: “I’ve spent a few thousand dollars on Swarovski crystals.”

“I love the designing and pattern-making,” Donna says, “but most of all I love working with dancers. They work really hard, so I love doing anything I can to support them. A couple of weeks ago we made face masks for the entire company, over a hundred of them. I bought in quilting fabric – it’s ideal for masks because it’s closely woven and washable – and we sewed them up in all these festive patterns.”

After growing up sewing with her Mum, does Donna create fabulous garments for herself at home? After all, there must be some tulle and Swarovski crystals left over. “Not so much anymore. You should’ve seen the fabric I took home during lockdown - and then didn’t do anything with. I knit instead. And I just bought an e-bike.” The Sleeping Beauty Isaac Theatre Royal Thu 19 – Sat 21 November rnzb.org.nz