About

Recreating Jerome Robbins’s West Side Story Suite for the National Ballet of Canada was an extraordinary honor—and, to my knowledge, the only time anyone besides New York City Ballet has staged it. The costumes are remembered for their bold, saturated colors; in fact, some fabrics had to be specially printed rather than dyed to achieve the richness Robbins demanded. When the ballet was first created, the men’s jeans were made in-house, but by the time we brought the production to Toronto, stretch denim was finally available off the rack. Of course, every pair had to be broken down and distressed so the dancers looked as if they’d lived in them, giving the production its gritty authenticity.