Circus Costume Magic with Jenny Leigh Du Puis
The Designer Series is a set of articles dedicated to the people who bring color, light, architecture, ambiance, and sound to circus. Often they invent and construct in a shop, a studio, a tech booth — unobserved by the standard circus patron, yet essential to the circus experience. These professions exist in many art forms, but this series digs into what it means to be a circus designer and celebrates their contributions to the community. In this series I also aim to glean from my interviewees and share with my readers what it takes to start, develop, and succeed in a circus design career. Secondly, I wanted to hear — straight from the source — best practices for communication amongst production teams to both honor the expertise of circus designers and make the show creation process as smooth as possible.
Jenny Leigh Du Puis. This month, I spoke to Jenny Leigh Du Puis, costume designer extraordinaire. Because of the extreme athleticism, body-to-body or body-to-apparatus contact that occurs in most disciplines, circus costumes do far more than simply clothe a performer. They are part of the performer’s safety, they are an engrained part of the story telling, and they are integral to character development. These specificities are seen in the long history of circus performers designing and building their own costumes. Du Puis explained how in small or familial companies, there is an apprenticeship m...Do you have a story to share? Submit your news story, article or press release.