Cirque du Soleil's TOTEM Show Costumes

Rebecca Brayton: She’s worked on the costumes for such widely successful films as
Romeo and Juliet and the Matrix and now, for Cirque du Soleil.
Hi! I’m Rebecca Brayton and welcome to watchmojo.com. And
today, we’re speaking with costume designer Kym Barrett about
the costume for the Cirque show TOTEM.

Kym Barrett: I think I got my ideas mainly from thinking about how the human
form could also project an animal or an amphibian and how those
two things could blend together without being disconnected in the
middle. I wanted it to be interesting to look at but it also have a
kind of root in reality, a kind of documentary basis and then after
that, I wanted the performance to feel comfortable and good and be
able to do what they needed to do in their clothes.

Rebecca Brayton: Would you be able to go into more detail about some of the
costumes we saw on today?

Kym Barrett: With the hoop dance with Nakotah. He is one of the major
storytellers of the piece. As he is telling the story with his
movement, he becomes a representative of all the myths and
legends and human storytelling from the beginning of time.

The love birds which are the two lovers in the sky, mainly I wanted
to show two innocent souls. I wanted them to be highlighted
against the big top but also, I wanted them to have a kind of a glow
from the inside.

The cosmonauts, I got my inspiration from the cave paintings of
the Aztec kind of time. So, I wanted to show that the aspiration to
fly and become part of the next millennium came from a long time
ago and we’re only just starting to achieve it now.

Rebecca Brayton: What type of research did you have to undertake to kind of attain
the accuracy that you were looking for?

Kym Barrett: I love to do research. So, I looked at boring books and beautiful
books with beautiful photographs. I tried to not just focus on one
being. I’ve already seen two Cirque shows a long time ago. So, I
tried not to see more until this was over. I try to let my imagination
tell the story really.