Flight Risk
A reporter learns that the beauty and artistry of trapeze performance belie the strength and dedication it takes to master the skills
By Yasmin Khan
In a hot warehouse tucked in a West Side back alley, six women hang from the ceiling. Some dangle upside down by their knees. Some by their ankles. Some by one hand.
I hang upside down by my ankles — for about three seconds. The rope burns the tops of my feet when I slide a little.
“It hurts!”
A buff woman with linebacker shoulders sprinkled with star tattoos helps me down.
We are beginners in a static trapeze class at the Aloft Aerial Dance warehouse, a circus school for aerial arts opened in 2005. It’s where fitness and thrill seekers go to build muscle and increase flexibility, working on the trapeze as well as specialized apparatus like silks and Spanish web.
Long silks — strong curtain-like fabric that the performer wraps herself in while suspended — and ropes for another “act” called the Spanish web cascade from the ceiling to the floor around us. Blue and red crash pads wait under us while rock music blares from a little radio.
The students, a bit gawky balancing on trapezes 8-feet off the floor, are dutifully following director Shayna Swanson’s instructions to hang from our ankles.
My arms are trembling from hoisting myself up to drop into an ankle hang —which I pull off just for a moment before Swanson has to help me down. Other women can hold the upside down hang longer, some can’t. Some can gracefully lower themselves off the trapeze, some just drop onto the cushiony mats. Everyone needs a little help from someone else during the 90-minute class, and Swanson or another student is always there to spot or encourage. Self consciousness has no place here.
Laughing and swearing, we practice doing the splits upside down, hoisting ourselves onto the top of the bar, balancing on our hips with our arms outstretched, and other, more complicated moves.
Aloft offers Spanish web, silks and other up-high classes involving bungee cords and climbing harnesses, but Swanson suggests trapeze for beginners because it’s easier to learn and the skills can be used in other, more advanced aerial arts.
Aloft has classes for kids and adults, and concentrates on technique and getting students on the apparatus and in the air the whole time, where other schools offer more acrobatic-based training, says Swanson.
During class, Swanson finds something good in everyone’s “performance.” She tells me I have great momentum and a flexible back. Another blonde, wiry woman is surprisingly strong. Another has natural grace in the air. The atmosphere is upbeat, fun. I feel my muscles working. This is way better than a push-yourself-till-you-puke spinning class.Static trapeze — called aerial dance when it’s low to the ground and lyrical and circus when high up and more extreme — takes fearlessness, flexibility and incredible strength..
“Aerial dance has a bad rep of being touchy-feely. It’s beautiful, but not hard in that circus way,” says Swanson, 30, banging a bruised and calloused fist on her patio table. “I do hard tricks that aerial dance people could never do.”
Her specialties: hanging upside down with only the tops of her feet flexed over the bar, or hanging by just an elbow or armpit – “Holy shit!”-evoking moves that make you cringe and applaud at the same time.
In contrast to Swanson’s “I-laugh-in-the-face-of-pain” moves, the first time I chalk my hands and simply hop up to grab the trapeze bar, my soft, non-calloused journalist-palms immediately burn, and I let go. Also, hanging by the knees is definitely harder than the last time I was on a trapeze — 15 years ago. I feel weak and vow to start lifting weights again like I did in my track and field days. But before class is through, I discover that my back is still relatively strong and that concentrating on getting the moves right eight feet in the air takes the mind off “I’m exercising.”
“It totally pushes you to the limit,” says Swanson, who has a background in gymnastics and dance.
