By
Rita Grimaldi
Developing A Costume To Reflect
Wolf’s Inner Changes
My Changes To The Wolf Mask
In Part Two, I talked about rewriting the story of ‘The
Iron Wolf’ in a way that would allow the wolf to choose reason over instinct.
Now wishing to reflect this change in the mask itself,
I choose to see fur as representing instinct – the animal side, and cloth as
representing reason – the more human side.
Here is Wolf mask redone for the story.
See how Wolf now has cloth on both sides of his lower
face. I have also given him an extra piece of fur to each side of the lower
face. By making these changes, I want to say that in my revised story, Wolf now
has a choice to follow either instinct or reason.
My Choice Of Clothing For ‘The Iron
Wolf’ Story
The original story of ‘The Iron Wolf’ is a Russian fairy tale.
So for my base clothing, I chose traditional Russian
male clothing. But I also wanted to reflect the balancing of instinct and reason
in some way in the clothing costume. So I took the tie that goes around the
hips and added to it. On one side, both fur (instinct) and cloth (reason). On
the other side, I added only fur.
Finally, I added the last part of the costume - fur
wristlets for each arm.
The amount of fur and cloth in these last pieces is not
balanced. There is more fur (instinct) than cloth (reason) because in the new
story, Wolf is stronger in instinct than in reason.
At the end of the story, after Wolf’s death and
reconstruction - when Wolf chooses to function by reason - I will remove the
sash and the wristlets.
THIS ACT WILL BE A SIGN THAT WOLF IS NOW READY TO
CHOOSE TO FUNCTION BY EITHER REASON OR INSTINCT.
And, as I have rewritten the story, his choice is
reason.
This is the right choice because it keeps all the characters
in the story alive including Wolf.
January 3, 2016
To be continued…
Part Four will be about
the rehearsal and the performance of Rita's version of 'The Iron Wolf'.
