Aerial Silks and Circus Arts

I’ve always been a ballerina. I started dancing when I was three years old and it has remained a huge part of my life for the past twenty or so years. Growing up, I trained with Texas Ballet Theater School in Fort Worth, Texas where I had the privilege to perform with Texas Ballet Theater in their full-scale productions of the Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, and Dracula. One year, I even performed in 24 shows of the Nutcracker with the company in various roles. Through summer programs I also trained with Kaatsbaan International Dance Center in upstate New York and Orlando Ballet School in Florida. Needless to say, dance has always been a huge commitment in my life.

Photo credit: Jessica Myer

When I was 17, I made the decision to take my self-identifying label of “ballerina” and replace it with “college student” when I moved to North Carolina to attend UNC Asheville. But I didn’t have to eliminate dance completely from my life because almost as soon as I’d arrived, I became involved with the Asheville Ballet and have since performed as Sugar Plum Fairy and other lead roles with the company.

Now, as I transition into full adulthood and I prepare to move cross-country and begin graduate school, I find ballet is no longer fitting into my schedule of commitments and priorities. And with the challenges and lack of opportunities that befall an adult dancer not pursuing a professional career in the dance world, I have turned to a remarkably similar yet completely new art form - Aerial Silks.

Me on the silks!

What I hope to look like in the future on silks.

I’ve only been taking classes for a few weeks now, but I have become addicted to the challenge of developing a new skill while hanging upside down in the air. At first I was nervous to take an aerial silks class - I have no experience with gymnastics and ballerinas aren’t known for their upper body strength. But I was pleasantly shocked to discover that my dance background was amazingly helpful in picking up this new skilled art form. Regular dance classes taught me the patience needed to deal with mastering a new move, the discipline to regularly take class to continually improve, and an awareness of my body and lines that become second nature to dancers. And while I’ve never really hung upside down before, dance taught me an attention-to-detail that has been invaluable when entering this new territory. Despite my lack of upper body strength, my continued dancing left me in better shape than I realized and I’ve been able to pick up new moves and techniques faster than I ever could have imagined.

Taking classes and getting to know instructors at Aerial Space in Asheville has also led me into the world of contortion and flexibility training - a class that has already helped my dancing tremendously. I’ve always heard how cross-training is a brilliant idea for dancers and I’m now understanding first-hand this truth. Taking aerial silks and contortion class has immeasurably affected my dancing and continuing dance classes has helped me acquire this new aerial dance form. As another studio, Emprean Arts,  opens up in the Asheville area, I plan to continue taking aerial and flexibility classes while also pursuing pole dance/fitness.

One final unexpected consequence of my entrance into the aerial silks and circus arts world has been my introduction to a whole new group of people. Unbeknownst to me when I first began classes, aerial and circus arts classes are popular amongst former ballerinas and gymnasts and I have begun immersing myself in a world of people who have had similar background training to me but have, for myriad reasons, left the direct dancing path. So rather than having to completely say goodbye to my childhood ballerina dreams, I am able to retain the skills I learned from dance training and apply them to a new technique, effectively keeping dance as an integral part of my life and identity.