Diablo Ballet's Amanda Farris: Dancer, Costumer, Master Multitasker
October 28, 2024—For most professional dancers, working full-time while raising a family is more than enough to keep them busy around the clock. Diablo Ballet's Amanda Farris does all that and more, as one of the Company's two costumers. Typically an overlooked and underappreciated art in and of itself, constructing and maintaining costumes involves not only sewing skills, but also creative imagination, persistent research, and lots of hard work. Recently Amanda took time out from her full schedule to talk with Michael Phelan of BayDance.com about her dual role as dancer and costumer.
Now in her 11th year with Diablo Ballet, Amanda has designed and created many of Diablo Ballet's costumes, including Julia Adams' Cinderella's Wedding, Swan Lake Suite, Sleeping Beauty's Wedding, Pas D'Action from La Bayadère, and Coppélia. She also choreographed the piece Elevator Operator, is a Teaching Artist with Diablo Ballet's PEEK Outreach Program, and is a faculty member of Diablo Ballet School. She is a wife and mother of seven-year old daughter Mia and six-year old son Milo. "I'm very good at multitasking," Amanda says, "My brain is busy all the time. I find I do better when I'm very busy. I like being busy. I like being useful, so when I find something that needs to be done, I like to do it," she says laughing.
Amanda and Christopher Dunn, Diablo Ballet's Wardrobe Supervisor, take turns taking the lead on projects. Although Amanda uses a task list and often writes things down, she usually takes things one at a time. "I have to prioritize," she says, "especially when we're making costumes that are for different parts of the season." But she also considers the needs of her family, looking at their schedules for school assignments, ballet lessons, etc. "My husband is incredibly supportive," she adds, "and very hands-on with the kids. It's a team effort at home, which is awesome."
How Amanda the dancer came to also be a costumer is no mystery. "I've been sewing most of my life," she explains. As a child she was fond of doing crafts. She learned sewing from her grandmother and her father, who learned how to sew in the army. She made Halloween costumes for herself and her family and tried making her first stage costume as a teenager.
Amanda was dancing with the Georgia Ballet when she became interested in making tutus. As a professional dancer with sewing skills, she was naturally interested in, "the construction of tutus," as she puts it. She asked for permission to use old costumes in the costume room, took some tutus apart to see how they were constructed, to look at "the engineering of it," how to make and keep the shape. And just as she had learned sewing from those more experienced than she was, Amanda sought out the expertise of costume professionals. "It's really nice when I can find somebody who has that expertise," she says, "but most of it is handed down from one person to the next. Anytime I came across anyone who knew anything, I'd just ask them a million questions. What do you do about this? How do you make it like that? Then I'd go home and try it out myself. There was lots of trial and error," she laughs. "Over the years I've made things that didn't work. I had to take them all to pieces and try again and see what else works best." Nowadays, other ballet companies allow her to see costumes from their own productions. She's been able to ask specfic questions about a costume's length and fullness, for example.
She had been at Diablo Ballet for a few years when, "I raised my hand," and offered to help out with the costumes. She would do "one small project here or there," but now she's involved in every production. During the dancing season most of her time is spent dancing. "I try to allocate my time very efficiently to make everything work," she explains. She tries to compile workloads during breaks between shows, and sew less as time draws closer to a production. But despite the best planning, "there's always one or two things that we end up having to do at the last minute because there are costume changes, or something doesn't work, or they need something made differently." Occasionally there are "crunch times" when the night before a performance she's finishing up some final modification. "The goal is to not stress myself out too much. I'm very good at starting projects early so as not to feel too pressured as the time comes."
When asked what she uses as a guide to design costumes for specific roles, she answers, "That's a very good question. It's very different depending on the project." On some projects the choreographer or whoever is setting the piece gives her a lot of freedom. "They say, well, I need it to flow a lot, or it needs to be more peasanty. It's almost harder that way because there's more things that I can do. I have to really narrow it down." Over the years she has developed a lot of her own patterns adapted from other patterns. She can get a basic pattern for a lady's fitted bodice or a skirt or men's pants. "I make it as-is, and then I modify it. I take it all to pieces, and then I create my own pattern, more full here or more tapered there, or adding elements to it." When something works well, she makes a copy for her files of which pattern was used for which production. "Depending on the ballet, sometimes the template is already made for me," she says, "and that is very specific to the ballet."
Three people have worked on costume construction for the current version of The Nutcracker Suite. "Usually, we allocate costumes according to what we're excited about doing," she adds. "Having the right vision is very motivating and a good place to start," she laughs. "If I don't have a vision for something yet, it can be difficult to get going. Most of the time, we have information to work off of depending on the style." Amanda explains that while there are specific ways to do costumes for classical ballet, for a modern production the choreographer has final say in the costumes. "It's their creation," states Amanda,"It really depends on the choreographer and their vision. Most of the time, a choreographer will have a pretty good vision for me, as to what they want the costumes to look or feel like. The exact intricacies of how it's constructed would then be left up to me." Some choreographers express a general vision of what they want, so she makes some suggestions and goes forward. However, choreographer Julia Adam had a very clear picture in mind for The Nutcracker Suite. She wanted Clara's nightgown to fit the 1950s period in which the production is set. Amanda researched photographs of the era and presented Julia with three choices. Julia then suggested combining elements of two of the nightgowns, and Amanda went from there.
Currently, Amanda is working on the costumes for Balanchine's Donizetti Variations, and Balanchine repititeur Sandra Jennings has been showing her photos of the productions from years past. Photos of the same ballet in later years showed how the costumes had been changed slightly, and Jennings wants Amanda to go back to the original designs. "Sandy could tell me, 'I really loved the sleeves, they were very billowy and they moved a lot.' That, to me, is super helpful in creating a costume because I want to make something that has volume and does flow in the air, which changes the weight of the fabric that I might use," she adds.
Not many costume photo books exist for ballet; most are for opera or theater. Usually Amanda goes by production photos or by talking with dancers who wore the costumes. "I do a lot of research," Amanda says, "depending on the ballet. If it's a ballet that's been around a long time, I do like to go back and find as many photos as possible or a video." She tries to "adhere to the aesthetic of the original costume," but tries to make the internal construction what she thinks would be most comfortable or easiest to dance in.
"For me, making costumes, I'm really here to support the choreographer and the dancers. I want to fulfill the vision of the creation for the choreographer, and I want the dancers to look and feel amazing. My favorite thing to hear from a dancer is that they didn't need to think about the costume when they were on stage."
True to form, Amanda's multitasking includes her performance in the upcoming The Nutcracker Suite. In addition to contributing costumes, she is dancing two roles, as Clara's aunt and the Snow Queen.
Diablo Ballet performs The Nutcracker Suite November 15 – 16 at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek.