When Gregory Hancock was a young boy, he came home one day telling his mother that he needed a costume for school. With great foresight, she sat him down at the sewing machine. That first costume has turned into thousands. As Hancock grew, exploring and expanding his talents in dance and music, the love of creating one-of-a-kind costumes became a passion.
Some of those costumes will take center stage for this month’s Second Annual Fashion at The Florence. Dancers will walk the runway in costumes that represent the unique style of Gregory Hancock Dance Theatre (GHDT), from the simple to the complex, with a multicultural flair. Last year’s creative take on a gala sold out.
“It was so successful, we’re moving forward with making it an annual event,” says Hancock, founder and executive artistic director of GHDT.
The fashion show will help fund production expenses for the upcoming 28th season of GHDT which begins in October.
GHDT is the resident professional dance company of The Tarkington. As part of the contemporary company, GHDT dancers perform a wide variety of styles to cultivate a unique method of storytelling that comes from the creative mind of the man for whom the company is named.
“I didn’t really plan to start a company,” Hancock says. “It just happened out of an interest in the creative process. That was more interesting to me than dancing. From costumes to lighting, I’m one of those choreographers that has a complete vision of what my creations should look like.”
Not only has Hancock created and choreographed nearly 160 dance productions for the company, he has crafted or curated all the costumes for these performances. The fashion show gives Hancock an opportunity to talk about the inspiration for the costumes.
“Audiences find that fascinating,” he says.
Also of interest to arts connoisseurs is the fact that Hancock has an unusual way of working.
“I don’t sketch,” he says. “I rarely do measurements. I combine patterns and just create costumes on my own.”
Whereas last year’s fashion selections showcased the costumes throughout the history of GHDT, this year’s features will preview costumes from the new season of productions, which run the gamut from The Pageant, a new comic piece about beauty pageants, to Exodus, a story of Biblical proportions set in a contemporary times.
Fashion at The Florence will take place in Carmel at 6:30 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 13, at 329 Gradle Dr., at The Florence, which is GHDT’s intimate black box theatre space lovingly named for Hancock’s mother.
Gregory Hancock
Hancock has received numerous awards, including Master Artist Fellowships from the Indiana Arts Commission and two Creative Renewal Fellowships from the Arts Council of Indianapolis and Lilly Endowment. He was named outstanding choreographer at the prestigious Youth America Grand Prix international ballet competition in NYC. He received a Regional Emmy Award for the PBS broadcast of his original musical La Casa Azul, about the life of artist Frida Kahlo. In addition to serving as executive artistic director for the internationally acclaimed Gregory Hancock Dance Theatre, he also serves as director for The Academy of GHDT where he hopes to pass on his experience and expertise to a new generation of dancers. Discover more at GregoryHancockDanceTheatre.org.