ZF Fire & Wing Flags

[HelenaZF]

Thank you! I'm always pleased when other worshippers find the flags beautiful. Beauty and glory speaks it's own message of the Kingdom, doesn't it?



Garmenting is a HUGE issue, in my estimation.....it's all part of the visual message we bring. I am not a small woman either, and it is a definite challenge to find something that is graceful, flattering and also speaks a message. I do tend to make a lot of my ministry garments. I'm planning a series of threads on that subject. Waiting for Dean to do some scans of pictures for me so I can begin to develope the presentations.



One thing that I have found works well for just about any problem body shape/type is a poncho-type garment we call a dance oval. You can see a variation of one on the man carrying the fireflag in the pictures above. It skims over the body, and adds it's own graceful movement to the choregraphy. Sometimes I'll add fringes or other things that also have a movement of their own as well. I'll be showing several versions and give some ideas in the upcoming garment series.



In our church, we use a white dance oval, and a scapular-type overlay (kind of like a long tunic, for the non-liturgical among us). I like using somekind of overlay with the dance oval. The scapular gives the sense of a slim body shape under the voluminous oval. The oval has an opening for the head and is tacked at the sides to form an opening for the hands to go through. That keeps it in place while you are dancing or flagging.



At first, we thought the fabric would get in the way of flagging, but we've found that it causes very little problem.



So that's one thing you might explore.....



Keeping some sparkle around your face.....say some spectacular yoke designs paired with dark, fluid fabrics that do not cling to the body would be another suggestion. The white/gold tallit I am wearing around my neck in the wingflag picture uses another visual trick....it calls attention to itself, and my simply dark background garment is not the focus point for the observer. It was actually a functional part of the the garment, as I had danced with the tallit in the early part of that piece that was captured in that photograph.