Aelita, Queen of Mars<\/i><\/a>, a film which drew my gaze while browsing in Paris at a DVD shop because it holds my namesake, and held my attention because it had such wonderful sets and costumes. \u00c2\u00a0It is a silent film, made in 1923.<\/p>\nSo in the costumes for Greenhills’ production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle<\/i>, as well as the set, we were most influenced by Russian and German Avant-Garde Cinema and Constructivist painting between the Wars than by the real clothes people in the region would have worn.<\/p>\n
It was fun to work with students, and many of them helped with the design process, or just came to help out a little here and there. They learned a little about how we would do things in a larger scale professional production, about how to make design choices, and how some things are good on paper but less so on the proverbial boards.<\/p>\n
For those who were interested, I also talked a little about my own family’s history and experiences at that time in Karelia, on the other side of Russia; the social connotations of dress and how to manipulate the audience’s perceptions; and how the history and social connotations of clothing and fashion are still present today, though in a different form.<\/p>\n
Director: Emily Wilson-Tobin<\/p>\n
Music Director and Composer: Benjamin Cohen<\/p>\n
Tech Director: Laura Bird with assistance from Tim Ebeling<\/p>\n
Assistant Costumers: Sarah Ceccio, Luena Maillard<\/p>\n
Assistant Makeup Designer: Cat Bonner<\/p>\n
(All Photos except Natella Abashwili and her Towering Shadow, are by Gabe Linderman, Greenhills student)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of my other recent projects was at the same school where we did Charlie Brown, but with the “Upper School” students (Grades 9-12). It was the play by Bertholt Brecht,\u00c2\u00a0The Caucasian Chalk Circle. It takes place in the Caucuses region in what is present day Georgia. It is not about “white” people, though if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,18,993,191,3],"tags":[869,926,870,863,283,872,949,851,232,11,857,436,871,929,924,88,24,434,49,959,197,850],"class_list":["post-1571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-fashion","category-feature","category-reflections","category-teaching","tag-aelita","tag-art","tag-balloons","tag-brecht","tag-cloth","tag-collaboration","tag-construction","tag-costume","tag-culture-2","tag-design","tag-drama","tag-ecology","tag-farthingale","tag-fashion","tag-featured","tag-patternmaking","tag-recycled","tag-recycling","tag-sewing","tag-stewardship","tag-sustainability","tag-theatre"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/allida.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/2013-11-19-16.33.06.jpg?fit=2592%2C1936&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1R2gu-pl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1495,"url":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/?p=1495","url_meta":{"origin":1571,"position":0},"title":"Participating in the Cannon","date":"July 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Although I would not say that these rugs were inspired by the work of Sonia Delaunay, after a series of drawings I did last year that were circular, someone directed me to look at her work. Of course I knew of her work before, she did both costume and fashion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","img":{"alt_text":"Summer Sun on top of Sun Rug","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/allida.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/2013-07-05-01.27.39.jpg?fit=896%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3416,"url":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/?p=3416","url_meta":{"origin":1571,"position":1},"title":"Wearable Art!","date":"November 28, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"For those of you who have wondered if you could wear my drawings, the good news is in: now you can! Adventurous Art! by ALLIDA store on Contrado.com See two shots of a jacket with a redbud leaf from my Songs of Urban Ecology Series. The first, a night shot\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/allida.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_2104.jpeg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2415,"url":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/?p=2415","url_meta":{"origin":1571,"position":2},"title":"On the Journey: But What About the Leaves","date":"March 23, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was visiting my father over winter break, I unearthed documentation of artwork that I did twenty years ago.\u00a0\u00a0It is funny to think of myself as an artist-practitioner for twenty years.\u00a0\u00a0Yet, when I look back at that work it is plain how it connects to my work today, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","img":{"alt_text":"A red photo album on my colorful concentric circle rag rug in my apartment in Boston.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/allida.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/5F2BFC52-5958-49D1-84EE-4E923AB496F4.jpeg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1444,"url":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/?p=1444","url_meta":{"origin":1571,"position":3},"title":"Goings On About Town","date":"June 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Though my drawing a day project has once again fizzled, I have in fact been making art nearly every day. \u00a0When I started the project, my intention was to do all kinds of work, showing progress, drawings, sketches, and finished work as it went on. But as the project went\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","img":{"alt_text":"Big things are in the works. Baby steps!!!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8272\/8827106126_38712e7c93_o.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2857,"url":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/?p=2857","url_meta":{"origin":1571,"position":4},"title":"Breathe: Art Lives in Community","date":"January 17, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"\"This morning I have been pondering a nearly forgotten lesson I learned in high school music. Sometimes in band or choir, music requires players or singers to hold a note longer than they actually can hold a note. In those cases, we were taught to mindfully stagger when we took\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/allida.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/img_2026.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2791,"url":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/?p=2791","url_meta":{"origin":1571,"position":5},"title":"Looking Back, Looking Forward","date":"December 14, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/195641581 Four years ago this weekend, in the midst of concern over the potential for our country to unravel after the 2016 election, I had an opportunity at the last minute to create something at an arts festival in Ypsilanti, Michigan. My head was a mix of fear, worry, protectiveness,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/allida.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/16AB7E6F-5AAA-43E6-9B0B-B4E306056D6B.jpeg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1571"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2268,"href":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions\/2268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allida.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Natella](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.allida.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/DSC_0707ed-278x500.jpg?resize=278%2C500\")
One of my other recent projects was at the same school where we did Charlie Brown, but with the “Upper School” students (Grades 9-12). It was the play by Bertholt Brecht,\u00c2\u00a0The Caucasian Chalk Circle<\/i>. It takes place in the Caucuses region in what is present day Georgia. It is not about “white” people, though if one did it as a period piece, set in the 1940’s and the 1920’s, I suppose people in that part of Western Asia are white.<\/p>\n![\"Natella](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.allida.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/2013-11-19-16.33.06-500x373.jpg?resize=500%2C373\")
<\/p>\n