Costume Designers’ Ingenuity Helps Ballet Dancers Shine

The Sleeping Beauty ballet was first performed in 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. Indeed, classical ballet has deep roots in Russia, so when Nittany Ballet performs it this weekend at Penn State’s Schwab Auditorium, it is fitting that each of the 150 costumes worn by 65 dancers was thoughtfully designed by two talented women from Russia.

Osana Babayan and Nina Volshanskaya both grew up in Moscow, about 10 years apart. Both moved to State College when their husbands began working for Penn State in the early 1990s. Both have been volunteering as costume designers since their children were young students at the ballet school — Volshanskaya for 15 years, and Babayan for 10. And both share a belief that good costuming is crucial for motivating and supporting serious young dancers.

“Both of us share a passion for wanting dancers to look good when they go on stage,” Volshanskaya said. “There’s nothing worse to both of us than watching a dancer in a shabby costume, or a costume that doesn’t fit… They work so hard. They deserve to look good, and they deserve for their costumes to be beautiful.”

To design beautiful costumes, Babayan and Volshanskaya have found they must get pretty creative to work within the financial constraints of a nonprofit organization.

“It’s a challenge every time. We do it out of nothing, basically,” Babayan said.

The pair rely on their own ingenuity rather than any standard patterns or designs, often using materials they find at flea markets and Dollar Stores to embellish previously used costumes. They have even produced costumes from old curtains.

Like many Russian natives, the two women share a love for ballet that they passed along to their children at a young age.

“I grew up watching ballet. I was very passionate about seeing it. But in Russia, it would never occur to me to send my child to ballet, because it was absolutely exclusive; you had to be chosen to do it,” Volshanskaya said. “But my girls always watched a lot of ballet. The first video that my oldest daughter ever watched was the ballet, Carmen. She would watch it over and over again. She became very devoted to ballet, so she started to do it here.”

Likewise, Babayan said, “My oldest daughter, Margo, was two when she started (at Nittany Ballet). She watched cartoons of The Nutcracker, and she was fascinated by the Mouse King… We had a little paper theater with paper dolls for The Nutcracker that came with a CD. Margo liked to change the little costumes for each dance, so I would make mini wreaths and mini costumes for her to use.

“She had this personality where she always wanted to dress up. I think my love for costumes was fed by Margo,” she said.

“Margo and my younger daughter were in the same Montessori preschool, and every morning the whole school was waiting to see what Margo would be wearing,” Volshanskaya adds. “She would wake up in the morning and say, ‘I want to be a butterfly today,’ and Osana would have to come up with a butterfly outfit in half an hour; otherwise, she was not going to leave the house.”

A software engineer by day, Babayan joined forces with Volshanskaya to create intricate, over-the-top Halloween costumes, like a group costume rendition of St. Basil’s Cathedral in the Red Square for the State College Halloween parade. She also became known for throwing elaborate birthday parties for her three children, transforming her home to recreate the imaginary worlds of Harry Potter, Star Wars, Peter Pan, and many more over the years.

“I grew up seeing my mom making all of our clothes for us from scratch; she would sew, she knitted, she would do these costumes with elaborate embroidery — mind-blowing, amazing things,” she said. “So she kind of gave me the idea that this was doable.”

Volshanskaya was likewise inspired by her own mother, who worked as a costume designer for movies in the Soviet Union, including for the award-winning film, Andrei Rublev, by the famous Russian director, Andrei Tarkovsky. With a history degree, Volshanskaya also went to work in the movie industry as a history consultant for Mosfilm, a Moscow film studio.

Although her two daughters have since moved on from Nittany Ballet, Volshanskaya said she plans to continue designing costumes for the studio.

“I do it for myself now, because I feel really fulfilled. I love doing this,” she said.

While Volshanskaya and Babayan are the brains behind the designs, they said they depend on, and are grateful for, help from parent volunteers when putting together costumes before a performance.

The Sleeping Beauty will be performed on June 1 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and on June 2 at 2 p.m. in Schwab Auditorium. Tickets can be purchased through the Performing Arts School of Central Pennsylvania at Tututix.com/pascp.