Costume change Mask-making project focused on Point Douglas neighbourhood keeps RWB en pointe By: Jen Zoratti Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Monday, Jul. 6, 2020

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This article was published 05/07/2020 (1634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ordinarily, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s wardrobe department would be crafting beautiful costumes and tutus for dancers to wear onstage. But with performances or tours cancelled amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the company’s costumers have pirouetted to mask making — and they are doing so for a good cause.

For the past six weeks, the RWB’s wardrobe team has been making non-medical masks to donate to the Winnipeg Boldness Project, an innovative community research project that works to develop community-led solutions to the complex social issues faced by the families living in Winnipeg’s Point Douglas neighbourhood.

In June, just over 500 masks were distributed via Boldness to several of its community partners, including Wahbung Abinoonjiiag, North Point Douglas Women’s Centre, Andrews Street Family Centre and Blue Thunderbird Family Care. Another 500 masks will be distributed this week.

David Warburton is the director of touring and business development at the RWB and is a team leader on what has been dubbed the Mask Project. He also became chair of the RWB’s risk management and response group when the coronavirus crisis began.

“One of the things in our process was to not only to look at how we were shutting down but also to start thinking about how we would reopen,” he says. “Masks, I think, were always going to be part of any type of reopening strategy.”

When the RWB initially sourced masks for its dancers, students and staff, however, Warburton says the company was underwhelmed by both the low quality and the relatively high cost.

So, the RWB decided to design and make its own, following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and the Masks Now Coalition in the U.S.

“We felt very satisfied with the quality of work we could do,” Warburton says. “We have one of the best wardrobe facilities in the country as well as some of the most talented people working there.”

Alena Zharska, head of wardrobe at RWB, and her team — Laura Elliott, Diana Miller, Noel De Leon and Emily Woodman — are on track to make more than 3,500 three-layer cotton masks, which come in an array of colours and patterns.

Some of those masks will be for company dancers and the RWB School’s students when they return to the studio; Zharska had to come up with a design for masks that were not only light enough to be danced in, but also fit securely around dancers’ faces. When designing the masks to be donated, Zharska avoided having sizes so that they could be used by anyone.

Mask making is certainly unusual work for her department, Zharska acknowledges with a laugh, but even though they aren’t using their estimable talents for costuming right now, “we are so happy we have at least opportunity to help other people,” she says.

“When you feel that you can give to people something, I think it’s a really, really good feeling. We want to help people solve some of their issues because some of the (community) centres cannot reopen without masks.”

Indeed, supplying RWB-made masks to community groups and individuals in need was always on the company’s radar. Warburton met Diane Roussin, the project manager of the Winnipeg Boldness Project, last November at the Winnipeg Indigenous Accord All Partners Gathering, which was hosted at the RWB.

“I remember being so blown away by the work they were doing, and so I immediately thought of them because we don’t have those same connections in the community,” he says.

Roussin, for her part, was thrilled to get Warburton’s call. “Our community would otherwise not ever have access to those kinds of masks,” she says.

Indeed, as Roussin points out, the families Boldness works with in Point Douglas do not necessarily have the resources to navigate a pandemic.

“Folks were managing decently, but I think the technology piece was an issue,” she says of those first couple weeks, when the world migrated online. “Folks just didn’t have access to good quality screens or good quality Wi-Fi. But their biggest concern, really, was their kids, and kids being at home, and every kind of concern about small spaces with lots of people, not being able to go outside, having kids at home all day long. Kids don’t have an individual screen, or quiet corners of the house to do school work — they’re all the kitchen table with everybody else. So we quickly moved to get our parents online.”

Homeschooling at the kitchen table with inadequate technology — as well as the sudden absence of school nutrition programs — weren’t the only challenges faced by community parents. Having the resources to follow public health guidelines also presented barriers.

“One of our parents had to got get tested because of where she was working, because lots of our folks had to keep going to work, had to keep riding the buses,” Roussin says. “Once she had been tested, she was given instructions about not using the same utensils and staying this far away and not using the bathroom, and she just flat-out said, ‘I can’t. I live in a house with my partner and my kids and my grandkids. I can’t.’”

As things begin to open up, masks have become a larger part of that public-health conversation, but, again: procuring quality masks presents another barrier for community members and organizations who are juggling other considerations, such as food. The Mask Project will allow community services to reopen, and will also get masks into the hands of those who need them.

Roussin says the reaction from her community to the ballet-made masks has been gratitude and, in some cases, surprise.

“I think our community is used to not getting the highest quality of things,” she says. “I think having special access to this quality, their reaction is, ‘oh, wow.’ I think people are deeply appreciative. And I think having masks is helping, as we get to venture out a little bit more, relieve a bit of the anxiety and apprehension.”

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @JenZoratti