Since 2010, the annual Trashion/Refashion Runway Show has been held at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, showcasing original fashion designs made from recycled and discarded materials. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the April 5, 2020, show was canceled.
The statewide lockdown and inability to gather in large crowds left the all-volunteer effort, organized by the Bloomington Trashion Committee and the Center for Sustainable Living Discardia project, looking for creative opportunities to share the designs that would have been presented at the 2020 show.
The group settled on producing a music video, intended to spread awareness and uphold the organizations’ goals of celebrating community, creativity, and sustainability. The 10-minute video, choreographed and directed by Celina Jaffe with music by Janiece Jaffe, features 13 Trashion designs and was shot at Bloomington’s Woolery Mill.
“Our sense of community has been obstructed and quarantined, and that impediment is being explored in this video,” says Project Manager Stephen Hale in a press release. “The Woolery Mill’s environment is both open to possibilities and an empty void—the canvas on which our work to rebuild and reconnect has begun.”
The video features a medium called screendance, a form of on-screen choreography that’s designed to be filmed.
“The result is a response to the effect of 2020 on our Bloomington community,” says Hale. “The music lends itself to the various emotional processes that we have gone through, are going through, and will go through in 2020 and onward.”
The music video was made possible with support from Bikesmiths, Olympus Properties, Lisa J. Baker DDS, and Plato’s Closet.
