Qiuyun Li

Qiuyun li（Rachel）is a costume designer and a performer based in China. Following graduating from the Beijing Institute of fashion technology, she moved to London and is working on her MA at Royal College of Art. Passion as a dance lover, She's really looking at story of clothes, the body movement, the physical expression of line of body. And bring that kind of story to the stage.

She works on performance and body movement, working with body as a main tool. She blends dance, visual art, installation and multimedia visual performance, relating the body and space.

Since she has noticed that lots of street theatres actually are in the very vulnerable position because of coronavirus. what’s her purpose is to keep the ballet alive. So she is thinking to combine real life dance shooting with virtual digital world where people can enjoy the intriguing online performance without going outside, and explore the new situation of future performance.

The fire god mountain is my inspiration for this project. It’s the name of one emergency hospital that was built up just within 10 days in China which can also accommodate large numbers of infected patients during the outbreak of coronavirus. The meaning behind the name is the high recognition of Chinese classical traditional culture. It’s about the five 5 elements of classical Chinese philosophy. The fire can conquer the metal, the wood can make the fire, in order keep life and growth in nature. So people treat “fire” as a treasure who can drive out strange forces and protect them from plague and virus.

‘Fire’ here is endowed with love, hope and rebirth. Through the establishment of this hospital in epidemic era. I want to reflect the national cohesion, spiritual belief, hope and recovery during this tough time. Since the virus has a big effect on people, I recognise people how they are feeling were very low, I really hope to rise people up. As a dance lover, choreographer and costume designer, what I thought would be really interesting, it was to be creating work inspired by the feeling of hope that I have towards dance. So this year I worked with Chinese contemporary dancers and digital visual artists, exploring the innovation and iteration of eastern aesthetics and culture to create a fire ballet.

-whole look-

-FIRE BALLET-

-selected chapter-

dance by YOUWEI LI/ virtual set design by SANJI YANG

-RED LINE TIME LAPSE SERIES-

-A ROW OF RED DANCERS-

-RED VEIL-

-DARK WAVE-

-REDEMPTION-

I try to combine the uncontrolled fire with the body movement. I made red line body time lapse series to explore the intriguing connection between the body parts.

I filmed myself dancing with the “flame projection”to seek the relationship between the physical body and the flame movement.

Also, worked with dancers, rethinking the script of the play, costume the characters and also the set of the theatre.

-set designs-

-set prototype-

-selected prototype for textile1-

-selected prototype for textile2-

-selected prototype for textile3-

-finalised costume designs-

-sketches and sampling1-

Fitting Process 1

Fitting Process 2

Fitting Process 3

Here are my iteration of design process. That includes set design, textile design and costume design.

-set design-

I refer to the arrangement of 5 elements of classical Chinese philosophy. Begin with making physical models and following testing with digital world ,cooperating with an artist who is specific in digital visual art work.

-textile design-

Sampling with different materials which respond to my idea of movement and atmosphere, different textiles development that to identify different figures in the play.

-costume design-

There are five figures in the play, their identities are fire god, plague, rescuer， buddhist and sufferer. The original shape of the fire god and plague are from Chinese ancient mythology, The sufferer and rescuer are the patients and nurses in our life.

virtual set design by SANJI YANG

costume design Set Design sketches Textiles work in progress