Listening Through and With Costume

In performance contexts, costume is often perceived as visual expression that is in service of, for example, a choreographer’s vision. I argue that costume is also an aesthetic and poetic language in its own right that allows individuals such as performers and designers to co-conceptualize and co-create performances. In co-creative performance-making processes, I argue that it is critical that designers open-mindedly listen to performers’ experiences of specific costumes and that we (designers and performer) through listening co-creatively explore potentialities and challenges that are embedded in a specific costume. In the co-creative process, we must pay attention and listen carefully to how a specific costume affects specific performers in order to explore the ‘hidden’ performative potentialities and qualities that are imbedded in a specific costume. In this article I will unfold aspects of how listening through and with costume can become a performance-making strategy and unpack details of what listening through and with the costume imply.