Victorian College of the Arts - Theses
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ItemCostume as a cultural marker: examining Australian identity through performance costume( 2022)As a nascent field, costume scholarship is yet to explicitly articulate performance costume as an indicator of broader cultural identity. This study positions costume in the context of notions of Australian identity, culture, and the performing arts archive. The project aims to explore if performance costume can be understood as a cultural marker, that is, a nuanced marker (or a sign, or indicator) of the cultural identity of the society which created it (the costume or set of costumes). The research questions how examining historical costume for dance in Australia can illuminate notions of an evolving cultural and national identity and challenge the dominant history. By positioning costume as a cultural marker, the study interrogates how costume can activate multiple histories, realities, truths, and knowledges. In order to achieve this, three exemplar sets of ballet costumes from Australia’s past are examined to construct a more detailed understanding of Australia’s identity at critical points in its history. Through the study of costume as an archived object, the project establishes new methods for understanding human history through costume. The research reframes interactions with costume through material culture, an interpretivist paradigm and constructionist epistemology, using archival research, interviews with industry professionals, and the creation of an experimental exhibition. These research approaches value the specific relationship between researcher and object, and the unique framing of each interaction and interpretation. Significantly, the research demonstrates how costume scholarship has the potential to change current belief systems by activating multiple histories and shifting societies’ relationship between their past and their present.