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Before every performance of Croquis, Vancouver choreographer Ralph Escamillan spends hours making sculptural works of art out of plain packing paper.
They could easily be displayed in a gallery, but these intricate creations aren’t static set pieces, they’re actual costumes, meant to be moved in. They get ripped, torn, trashed, destroyed and remade for every show — a rumination on the impermanence of live performance in which even the costumes are for one night only.
Their construction involves no gluing, taping or stapling — just hours of meticulous folding. Take the costume for a recent performance in Revelstoke, B.C.: a three-metre-tall paper dress that required him to be up on a ladder. That garment alone took eight hours of work.
Croquis, which will be performed in Winnipeg this weekend as an expanded quartet developed in collaboration with Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers, was originally conceived as a solo performance.
It’s an extension of a previous work called Piña, in which Escamillan explores his experience as a first-generation Canadian-born Filipino using the titular traditional Filipino fabric, which is made out of pineapple leaf fibres.
As part of his research for that project, Escamillan, 32, worked with piña weavers from the Philippines to learn more about their technique.
“It’s an unmechanized process because you have to extract the fibre by hand, it’s knotted by hand, it’s woven by hand,” he says.
Inspired, Escamillan started thinking about how he could make his own textiles in a similarly unmediated way.
“How can I transform this really humble roll of Staples paper and make something really beautiful out of it — but also then show the contrast of destroying that? And what does it mean for the garment to also be as ephemeral as the performance?”
Croquis borrows its title from the French term for a rough draft or preliminary sketch, particularly in fashion design. Escamillan’s costumes embody the loose, kinetic quality of those sketches, except here, the dancers actually animate them.
Costuming is a big part of his practice with FakeKnot, his Vancouver-based dance company, he says.
“I align it with having to code-switch a lot as a queer person of colour,” he says, referring to the process of changing your speech, appearance or behaviour to better blend in with the people around you.
“And coming from an immigrant mother, you know, there’s always this idea of having to dress up and look a certain way in order to assimilate.”
Escamillan is also an active member of the ballroom scene, in which “what you wear is a big part of how you communicate. And I think in many cultures, the whole world does this. It’s not really just isolated to my experience, but it’s definitely been a big part of how I move in the world.”
Escamillan will be joined onstage by WCD dancers Carol-Ann Bohrn, Reymark Capacete and Julious Gambalan, and will be working with costume assistant Aldeneil Española Jr. to get them dressed.
Escamillan is always exploring new ways of performing with the garments, and says Croquis allows him to pull from all his different dance backgrounds and influences, which include breakdancing, vogue, ballroom, ballet, modern and jazz.
“The garment kind of guides me to the type of movement that is expressed,” he says.
Escamillan has also relished being able to finally work with Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers in person. He was a guest artist-in-residence in 2021, but that residency was virtual owing to the pandemic.
During that time, Escamillan worked with late choreographer and former WCD artistic director Tedd Robinson on a remix of Robinson’s famed 1987 work, Camping Out.
Robinson was also a big influence on Escamillan as he was building the initial solo version of Croquis.
This weekend’s performances of Croquis will pay tribute to Robinson and his mentorship. The paper costumes may be temporary, but some things are built to last.
“This piece kind of has become … I’m calling it a love letter to Tedd, without being so dramatic,” Escamillan says.
“But really, it’s a response to his influence on me as an artist in a really short amount of time, while also honouring his impact, not just on me, but on the country and Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers.”
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