Photo by Aaron Hogan of Eye Wander Photography
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.
Aerial silk performance is a genre of movement that meets at the intersections of fitness, spatial cognizance, physics, bodily awareness, mindfulness, and physical theater (or “circus arts,” as Jamie puts it). It’s practiced by a small group in Baton Rouge, but the numbers are growing. “It’s a movement of movements,” she said. “Circus is kind of mainstream right now. It is having its moment.”
Jamie is the owner and founder of AirSeekers, a Baton Rouge performance company for which she is both a performer and an instructor to beginning aerialists. Teaching from her home studio is a full-time gig, but it’s likely you’ve seen AirSeekers at city festivals such as Art Melt, Burn the Fire, Baton Rouge Blues Fest, and Louisiana International Film Fest as well as at private parties or maybe an impromptu performance at a park.
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Like dance, aerials is a performance art; the difference being that the stage is vertical rather than horizontal. Turning the stage on its side changes the way performers move in space; and for some, it makes more sense. “When you are in the air, your body can go anywhere. You’re not limited to that foot-to-ground contact or hand-to-ground contact,” Jamie said. “Even in gymnastics, you’re waiting to connect to the ground to ‘stick it.’”
Not so with aerialists. An aerial performance might be defined by proprioception, a term more likely found in a physics textbook. The word describes a performer’s personal sense of movement in and through space. “There is just a group of people who, when they can go anywhere, they find their place,” Jamie said.
Admittedly a fairly clumsy person before she began her practice, Jamie took up aerials to explore motion, athleticism, and fitness. The training and conditioning followed naturally, she said.
Aerial silk offers a personal challenge for Lee Guilbeau, a personal trainer and rock climber in the area who discovered aerial silks through LSU’s theater department. Unlike many physical endeavors, aerial silk allows Guilbeau to explore a range of possibilities. “I like activities where I can see beginner progress and also see an infinite progression,” Guilbeau said. “If I had a goal of doing one hundred pull-ups, it would be much different; it would be the same every time. That’s not as exciting as a combination of a shape that I can get creative with.”
The increasing interest in aerials and acrobatics today is closely tied to the spread of personal physical fitness. Most people have some kind of exercise routine, whether it’s yoga, jogging, or lifting weights at home, Jamie said, adding, “Fitness today has such a bigger presence in our mainstream society,” she said. “There’s a place in it for everyone.”
Occasionally, Jamie will find a student looking to perform beyond the hobbyist level. That’s when things change, she said. That’s when floating over Baton Rouge rigged to a hot air balloon (a feat Jamie has accomplished) becomes a goal. “People have said I’m obsessed. I feel like I’m compelled to do it,” Jamie said. “All of the conditioning, all of the hard work is what I have to do in order to have this outlet in a way that I love to do it and in a way that I want to do it.”
Performances can take a number of themes, said Guilbeau, who works with Jamie. They can be “ethereal” and “hypnotic” or “explosive.” “Most of the time, the idea is to be still for a moment and then move to a different shape and make it dynamic to the point where each moment of pause catches the eye,” he said.
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Adding another performer increases the variables. As with any acrobatic performance, it can be intimate, so there has to be chemistry, said Bri Basco, an LSU student who performs with AirSeekers. The body language between performers has to be clear, she said.
“There is a deeper understanding of feeling your body and knowing how to ask for what you need from a partner without words,” said Guilbeau. “I’ll try to incorporate that or seduce that from my partners. That nonverbal communication is super important.”
“It’s weird; it’s like a subconscious thing,” Basco said. “The people you trust, you end up doing a lot better with.” In addition to physical strength, a touch of humility and confidence is helpful. In Basco’s eyes, it’s only as uncomfortable as you make it.
Basco discovered the acrobatics community in Baton Rouge through acro-yoga, an extension of the larger acrobatics community. She was instantly attracted to it. “When I came into Baton Rouge, I wanted this community, I just didn’t know how to find it,” she said. “I feel like we have something starting.”
That something is a blur of the deeply etched line between Baton Rouge’s artistic and athletic communities, Jamie said. “Fostering the growth of this kind of joyful community in Baton Rouge is important, but I think that’s important everywhere. The world needs as much happy as we can get.”
Classes Monday through Thursday evenings at Elite Gymnastics, located at 8321 Bluebonnet Boulevard. Available for a range of ages and expertise levels. Visit facebook.com/airseekers for times and prices. airseekers.com.
