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Stage makeup is more complicated than I thought


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Here's a speeded up video of Callie Manning, a Soloist at Miami City Ballet, putting on her makeup and fixing her hair before a performance. My goodness, but there is a lot to do if you are a woman.

(My own very limited ballet appearances, as a butler the Nutcracker involved a ratty old horsehair peruke and some eye pencil, both applied by myself in a crowded dressing room, and a few puffs of powder patted on at the last minute by someone backstage.)

http://www.miamicityballet.org/blog/2010/0...-in-the-mirror/

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Here's a speeded up video of Callie Manning, a Soloist at Miami City Ballet, putting on her makeup and fixing her hair before a performance. My goodness, but there is a lot to do if you are a woman.

(My own very limited ballet appearances, as a butler the Nutcracker involved a ratty old horsehair peruke and some eye pencil, both applied by myself in a crowded dressing room, and a few puffs of powder patted on at the last minute by someone backstage.)

http://www.miamicityballet.org/blog/2010/0...-in-the-mirror/

False eyelashes AND mascara? I stand in awe.

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Yes, the stage makeup is complicated,but more so if you are a character in a ballet. It is also very rough on the skin, especially during long seasons. The worst for me were the matinee and evening performances, some dancers keep it on from the afternoon until they finish in the evening. In the company during long tours we would have contests to see who could put it on the quickest, and still do a good job of it. I could put it on fast, but it took me forever to take it off!

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Given the factors of fast motion, bright lighting, and auditoriums of the "big barn" variety, ballet makeup even for juveniles has to be pretty ornate, and products change over the years, so all sorts of innovation creep in. Modern mascara is much gooier than the old variety, which was pretty much antimony and water, so the modern stuff serves to keep the false eyelashes in place much better than the old. For a good example of old-fashioned makeup, just look at publicity stills for stage plays from around 1910 (Otis Skinner's come to mind, and even movie makeups for George Arliss, which makeups were done mostly with greasepaint. They look almost like clown makeups. (Arliss kept playing juveniles into his seventies)

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Duffster, you may be helping to destroy the element of Ballet Mystique which we've been discussing in the Bouder/Twitter thread. :D

I've occasionally wondered whether makeup ever gets transferred to the partner's face or costume. (Perhaps this has been elinimated by modern technology.)

I've also wondered about wigs and hair attachments -- how they stay on, etc. At one point in the video, Manning seems to be attaching curly tendrils to her bun. Eye lashes, bits of hair, entire head pieces: there's so much to FALL OFF, or to become askew.

Has anyone ever seen such accidents happen on stage? How do the performers deal with them"

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Has anyone ever seen such accidents happen on stage? How do the performers deal with them"

One time I saw a Giselle's Initiation scene-(Act II)-in which her veil got stuck in her face-(probably in some hair pin)-during that sharp pulling off. Poor girl just stayed there while someone obviously kept frantically pulling it from the wing until it finally got detached. :D

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I've also wondered about wigs and hair attachments -- how they stay on, etc. At one point in the video, Manning seems to be attaching curly tendrils to her bun. Eye lashes, bits of hair, entire head pieces: there's so much to FALL OFF, or to become askew.

Has anyone ever seen such accidents happen on stage? How do the performers deal with them"

Not sure if this strictly fits in with your question as it was a headpiece but an "accessory" rather than "added hair", but a few years back I saw NYCB's Swan Lake with Sofiane Sylve as Odette/Odile. Sylve had a small jeweled headpiece/crown as part of her Odile getup and all was well until the coda of the big pdd. Sylve

started to look a bit distracted during the fouettes and all of a sudden the the glittery thing on her head flew off and landed some ways off on the stage floor. I guess because she was turning, the thing had a bit of momentum! Laws of physics and all. I didn't see the thing well enough to notice if it was just the glittery stuff or if part of any hair attachments were also involved.

Sylve finished the fouette sequence and was probably relieved it was over. It was the second glitch in that performance, shortly after entering as Odette in the first lake scene, she ended up on the floor, either she slipped or there was a partnering glitch with Charles Askegard.

All in all, both Sylve and Askegard dealt with both accidents very professionally, minimizing their impact on the audience

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Richard, but what happened to the headpiece? Did Siegfried sweep it off and present it, reverentially, to Odile? Or Rothbart? Or a quick-thinking courtier?

Rothbart held it up and Charles Askedgard as Siegfried pledged eternal troth to it. :D

Seriously, I don't recall for sure. It flew a ways on it's own, I guess operating under it's own law of dynamics , some distance from the center of the stage where Sylve was churning out the turns. Someone made it disappear as inconspicuously as possible!

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In Grigorovich's Spartacus the male lead lifts Phrygia only once or twice in the first act. When I saw it two years ago, some makeup from his face (I think), accidentally found its way to her tights during this lift. The spot bothered me during the whole ballet..

That's the downside of sitting near the stage, I suppose, It's hard to miss the imperfections. :)

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I've occasionally wondered whether makeup ever gets transferred to the partner's face or costume. (Perhaps this has been elinimated by modern technology.)

I've also wondered about wigs and hair attachments -- how they stay on, etc. At one point in the video, Manning seems to be attaching curly tendrils to her bun. Eye lashes, bits of hair, entire head pieces: there's so much to FALL OFF, or to become askew.

Has anyone ever seen such accidents happen on stage? How do the performers deal with them"

I've seen a few hairpieces fall off in Nutcracker performances, but that is usually restricted to young students and their moms who haven't figured out how to keep them tightly on their heads with hair pins! By the time they're intermediate to advanced, most ballet students know how to keep those items attached! (It's embarrassing to have happen :) )

I have seen a heavy jewel fly off Gillian Murphy while doing turns, I believe it was an earring or perhaps a bejewelled hairpin, because I can't imagine any of the jewels on her costume landing with such a thunk!

I've seen lots of makeup on costumes, especially face powder and lipstick which usually doesn't show on stage due to the lights, but usually costume ladies can clean the costumes if necessary.

Also, I saw Diana Vishneva start bleeding from her knee on stage during Romeo and Juliet, if I remember correctly. At her next exit offstage, she returned seconds later with no blood showing! Amazing. Quick change of tights or makeup put on? I don't know, but it was very fast and I was very impressed.

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The old-fashioned bijoux (fake jewels) made of glass used to do that occasionally. They were heavy, and some partners hated them because they would develop sharp edges which cut the guy's hands, and would sometimes get caught in their costumes. They were mostly flat, but they could do that if one side became unsewn.

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I've often seen dancers sporting their partner's makeup on their costumes, especially when one (usually the man) is wearing body makeup. I've often wondered why dancers use body makeup, since whatever nearly imperceptible enhancement it may yield seems outweighed by the stains on the other person. If a person has an unsightly birthmark or scar or tattoo, then it's understandable, but otherwise, nyet.

Fortunately, body makeup seems less popular (or more fixable?) now than it was way back in the 20th century.

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