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Department of Theatre
Costume Studies
The Costume Studies Programme is unique in North America, and offers a four-year Honours BA in Theatre (Costume Studies). The Program has a strong historical focus on both theatre and museum work, and stresses applied skills, along with research and academic skills. The applied skills are taught using a conservatory approach, while the research and academic components are imparted through a more traditional university pathway. In this way, students achieve a well-rounded education, equally able to turn their hand to creating costumes from any historical period and for both genders, and to the kinds of problem solving which have come to be expected of graduates with a broad liberal arts education.
Thus, in the applied skills segments of the classes, students obtain a firm foundation in textile history, textile fabrications and embellishment, designer’s language, tailoring, aesthetics of historical and modern dress, pattern designing of garments from 1680 to the present, costume as sculpture, costume technology, and costume in performance. Not only do students learn to create clothing from any period in history using bespoke, one-of-a-kind couturier methods, but through the academic component within each class they also learn why and how clothing contributes to the formation of personal, community and cultural identities, for example. In addition, students gain a strong proficiency in costume history from antiquity to the present, exploring why people clothed themselves as they did, and paying particular attention to the social and cultural influences at play, along with class and gender differentiation. As part of Costume Studies, students now also take two classes at NSCAD University, which contribute positively to the diversity and strength of our program.
In addition to projects and assignments within individual classes, students have an opportunity to hone their applied and academic skills in costuming all four DalTheatre productions each year, and in the creation of a major historical research project which is presented to the public at the end of the academic year. It is within these two components of the program – one grounded in the magic of theatre, one steeped in the sensuality of history – that the individual elements of the program are realized and appreciated. It is here that students are able to gauge public reaction to their work, which is a valuable part of their education experience.
Students come to Costume Studies from all across Canada and the USA. The program is selective in its choice of students who quickly form a special bond and make friends for life. Because of the closely-knit Costume Studies community, those moving away from home for their first year of university need never fear being lonely. Moreover, Costume Studies alumni have a far-reaching network throughout North America, and share a camaraderie not experienced by those in large university programs.
The Costume Studies studios are located in a modern building in downtown Halifax overlooking cosmopolitan Spring Garden Road and Dresden Row. But students feel very much a part of the university in general, and the Department of Theatre specifically, as several classes are taught on the campus itself. Dalhousie has a beautiful campus, with its grassy, leafy quad surrounded by the original stone buildings constructed for the university in the early nineteenth century. The Department of Theatre, along with the Department of Music and the Dalhousie Art Gallery, is housed in Dalhousie’s Arts Centre which is home to the public-performance Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, and to the Department of Theatre’s 230-seat Sir James Dunn Theatre and the more intimate David McMurray Studio.
The Honours BA in Theatre (Costume Studies) was offered for the first time in 2005, but has its foundations firmly rooted in the Costume Studies Program which was begun at Dalhousie in 1976. Thus, it is a mature program which, in addition to equipping students to find employment in theatres, film, television, and living history museums, among others, also enables them to pursue postgraduate education upon completion of the BA.