Staff Profile: Costume Designer Cyndi Church

By Raven Crosby, Emory Dance Program Office Assistant

Emory Dance Program costume designer Cyndi Church works closely with choreographers to create pieces that are creative, practical, and innovative. “Designing is fueled by a passion that excites and provokes your thoughts in ways that you want to get lost in and dive a little deeper each opportunity you have to design.”

This fall, abiding by COVID-19 restrictions, Emory Dance Company choreographers created site-specific pieces in spaces that can accommodate a small, physically distanced audience. This provided a new challenge for Church since she usually designs costumes for the theater rather than outdoor spaces. Church says, “At times there are unavoidable obstacles, like dancers need to wear shoes or something protective for their knees/hands. So, the challenge is to work that into the design in a way that isn’t just a functional need. Site-specific can also open a whole door of creative possibilities to ponder in the design process. The costuming can lean into the space and bring forward ideas.”

Church began her career by “…investing in what interested me and just giving my time to what I wanted to one day spend my days doing. One might say that the little girl in me has always been a control freak and so as she grew up in the arts, she needed to control everything, even the ‘look.’” Over the years, Church has learned many lessons that have strengthened her skills in the craft of costume design. One of the most valuable lessons is how to balance costume construction and creativity. “Creativity is one thing, but if you can’t think through the nuts and bolts of a design you have imagined, it probably will have setbacks, keeping it from functioning on a moving body.” She also learned from a mentor to celebrate the “flops” —the “moments when you put in the hardest work and in the end, you are beyond underwhelmed.” This has helped Church to overcome her fear of failure when starting a new project.

As a costume designer, Church often must collaborate with choreographers to create clothing that works for the dancers’ bodies as well as the movement. Each project brings new discoveries about collaboration. For a successful partnership, costume makers “...shouldn’t put themselves in a box of  “’I can be whatever designer you want me to be.’” Church also makes sure her role is clearly defined when she begins working with a choreographer —is she a costume designer or a costume coordinator? She says both roles are of equal value in the world of dance making and both bring a sense of accomplishment to the project. “Costume coordinating may have fewer design opportunities but still has many doors for creative working and problem-solving.”

 

Church believes that all dancers should have knowledge of basic costume repair and the ability to make easy adjustments to a costume. For dancers interested in exploring costume design, Church says that “…design is sometimes the ability to make a choice and go with it. But it also can be much more thoughtful and dives into resources of creativity that are skills nurtured and developed over time.” To become more involved, dancers should spend time in the costume shop to explore and create. “Just like all the outside work that goes into mastering a craft, it takes some individual investments to acquire those skills that surround and support the arts.”