September 2016

Suspended in mid-air, Jamie Ray arches her back and stretches a leg out from behind, her toes pointing toward the back of her head. She lets the pose sink in for a moment then exits it just as eloquently as she entered by unraveling herself from the white silk curtain hanging from the studio’s high ceilings. A small handful of her students follow suit, one after the other, gripping the curtains with both hands and hoisting themselves upward, rolling and spinning (and sometimes flopping), but never without a round of applause and words of encouragement.

For some, athleticism might constitute weightlifting; for others it’s team sports. For these aerialists, athleticism is about climbing a silk curtain that they twist and sway from, reaching ever higher.

—an excerpt from Quinn Welsch's "Curtain Climbers," the cover story of our September 2016 issue.