Duo driven to keep stage performers in stitches
SEEING their designs on stage is a fuel that feeds the passion of Artscape costumiers Gabieba Isaacs and David Stassen.
Isaacs and Stassen both started at Artscape more than 30 years ago, when it was named the Cape Performing Arts Board.
Isaacs, 65, will retire next year after working at Artscape for 38 years, but says she will miss everything about making clothes for the stage.
“I have a passion for this kind of work and I’m pretty sure I’ll still be doing it after I retire next year,” said Isaacs.
Making clothes has always come naturally for the Kensington grandmother, who comes from a family of seamstresses.
Her mother, grandmother and aunts were all seamstresses and she learnt the craft from her mother at an early age.
She started working at Artscape as an embroidery machinist and taught herself how to do the seamstress work for the costumes.
Today, working as a costumier, Isaacs liaises with designers and makes the extravagant costumes from scratch using a basic pattern.
One of the more challenging designs she worked on was for the Spartacus of Africa ballet held at the Artscape Opera House last year.
Stassen worked at Artscape when it was Capab from 1981 until 1985. He later left to work at the State Theatre in Pretoria and in commercial fashion. The costumier pioneer has been working in the fashion industry for the past 32 years.
But it was the magic of encountering new experiences and people on a daily basis that drew him back to Artscape.
Stassen said when he started at Artscape, there were many big shows where they worked with numerous designers from overseas.
Artscape Theatre creative manager Mandla Mbothwe said: “This conscious inclusive approach in our creative programme is our attempt as an institution to ‘Excavate, Restore, Celebrate’ as this year’s festival theme suggests.
“It’s time for sharing our experiences, our spirits and a time of resuscitating our purpose as Africans.”