Just hangin' around

This weekend I had the great fortune of partaking in an aerial silks and corde lisse workshop, organized by my fantastic teacher Sylvie and run by Diane Vaicle, a young professional aerial silks and corde lisse artist. I thought the weekend would give me the perfect opportunity to get a grasp on the basics of silks, since up until now I've stuck mainly to trapeze.

For those that are unfamiliar with it, aerial silks or tissu is a type of circus performance where the artist performs while hanging from a special stretchy fabric hung in 2 pieces from the ceiling, without safety lines or nets. (To give you a good idea, here is a great video of my teacher, Sylvie, performing tissu for the inauguration of the city of Toul's new aquatic centre this past month.)
 
Corde lisse is much the same idea except you perform on a single rope.

 

 

corde lisse - not for the faint of heart

tissu aerién

 There were about 12 of us total, and for a combined total of 8 hours over the course of the weekend Diane led us through some great stretching, breathing and strength exercises to warm up and then gave us lots of things to work on, starting with basics on silks for us beginners, such as different ways to climb, clés de ventre and grenouilles, and more complex moves for those a little more familiar with silks.

The weekend was a lot of fun and it was great to pick up on the basics and learn some new moves. I can proudly say I've moved up from complete beginner level and can perform a few moves quite well! Still lots of improvement and advancement to be made but I was glad to have professional help in getting some tricks under by belt (on the tissu, anyways. Corde is, as one of my coursemates called it, barbarique). By the end of the weekend everyone was exhausted, however, and my arms haven't recovered yet. Nor the rest of my body. And I have a nice little souvenir to prove how hard I worked this weekend (from the barbaric corde):

Brutalizing my body is all part of the fun

I'm so glad I discovered aerial circus arts. I've fallen in love with trapèze fixe and am starting to really enjoy tissu too. Next weekend my teacher is taking us to someone who provides materials to make trapezes, so I'm going to make one of my own! And hopefully I can get my hands on a few metres of tissu as well before I leave. The problem is where to hang the damn things...

the best view of the world is from upside-down! And yes, I can do this move :)