This October, Toronto set and costume designer Dany Lyne was awarded the richest prize in Canadian theatre — the $100,000 Siminovitch Prize. Dany Lyne gained her first hands-on theatre design experience at The Banff Centre in 1990-91. In the past 16 years, her costume and set designs have won accolades in over 70 productions in Canada, the United States, and Europe. She talked to Inspired about the state of Canadian theatre design and her time in Banff: You’ve spoken eloquently about the need for more recognition of the work of artists…I feel that artists are hanging out to dry at the moment. I think there needs to be a conscious effort and a political will to support the arts. We need to look at the arts as a means to attain and shape a healthy society. Theatre is the heart of a nation, a place where we can face ourselves, we can tell our stories, break our silences. …I am frustrated because I don’t see theatre companies fighting for their artists. The fees paid to theatre designers are very low, artists are stretched very thin… What is it you are trying to express through your designs?I am always reaching for designs that produce evocative and politically challenging story telling, so that if there are issues of sexism or racism in the work, the audience is pushed to examine these. I am trying to reach for a context that will bring the story home to the audience. I look for metaphors that will transcend that fourth wall, that will go to the audiences’ hearts … so that they will open up to the possibility of change. |
Your first experience in theatre design was in Banff. What brought you to the Centre?I was studying at the Ontario College of Art and Design. Dr. Paul Baker, who was my mentor, suggested that I apply to the Centre. I hadn’t worked in theatre up until then. I was a graphic designer and font designer by trade … I was there for four months and my term was extended to a full calendar year. What are your strongest memories from Banff?One thing I remember particularly is that there were [costume] cutting interns there, learning to cut garments. As designers, we were allowed to use left-over fabric and design complex garments, and have a cutting intern build everything. In a professional production, this would cost $10,000, but we got to build and conceive a costume just to learn. I created my first theatre costume design, and that gave me a point of departure. The ice was broken; I had taken a garment from beginning to end. … Banff to me was the community we formed over the summer — people sharing their passion. All of us were together. We all shared cigarettes on the theatre loading dock — stage carpenters, opera singers, costume designers, the lighting guy. In professional theatre, everyone is separate; the carpenter doesn’t go to the same party as the singer. That is the magic of Banff — the walls came down between the different art forms — that vision has fed me as a sort of utopia to work toward. |
Published: January 2007.