If you've stood on a moving swing or hung upside down on the monkey bars, you've had a taste of it. A feeling of strength, of seeing the world from a different angle, of showing your friends and anyone else standing around how brave and flexible and just darn cool you are.
Take that and multiply it by 10. Welcome to the aerial dance class at the University of New Hampshire.
Here, students hoist themselves on trapezes and hang by their heels. They balance with each other in elaborate, contortionist-inspired poses. They hover over the ground in splits, each ankle wrapped in blue silk hanging from the ceiling 18 feet up.
Part circus performing, part dance, it's a style that's becoming more and more popular with audiences and with dancers, according to Gay Nardone, who teaches the class.
"Everybody wants to fly," Nardone said.
That said, students don't do the flying trapeze routines from the circus. When they're on the trapeze, they balance and pose, pulling off different stunts. One student has perfected the art of the one-point trapeze, where she twirls just inches off the ground and pulls herself into impossible positions.
Although pioneered by a woman in the Midwest, aerial dance has been made famous by Cirque du Soleil, a Canadian-based troupe which began producing shows with acrobats and dancers in the 1980s.
These days there are aerial dance troupes in many major U.S. cities - Los Angeles, Miami, New York - and in several not-so-major ones. Boulder, Colo., has one. So does Madison, Wisc.
Nardone brought aerial dance to UNH three years ago. A former professional dancer - she kicked up her heels with the Rockettes, among others - Nardone went to the pros to learn the style. She studied with retired Cirque du Soleil performers Serenity and Elsie Smith, twin sisters who live in Brattleboro, Vt.
After learning the moves, Nardone had a dance studio rigged with equipment and handpicked students to give it a try.
The class of eight women and four men all dance with the university company. Most have studied ballet and tap since they were toddlers. And though they move with the grace of highly trained dancers, their arms and legs bulge with muscles that would make a boxer jealous.
"My boyfriend says my muscles are bigger than his," said Andrea Scotti, 19, a sophomore.
Students said they got their rippling pipes from the aerial dance work. Each time they pull themselves up on a trapeze, they're doing a chin up. Many moves require them to balance their body weight on one arm. When they work on the silks - long bolts of cloth hung from the ceiling - they often hold themselves up with their upper bodies while performing moves with their feet.
"When you have to lift your butt up over your head, you have to be strong," Nardone said.
Although the students only get about 10 feet off the ground, it's still high enough to make for a nasty fall. Before each practice they check the rigging and equipment to make sure it's set up right and blue mats are laid out on the hard floor. Students take turns spotting each other.
The chances of falling are slim as long as you're focused, dancers said.
Senior Jonathan Wells, 24, remembers plummeting to the mats soon after he started.
"It was over so fast, I didn't have time to get scared," Wells said.
But the danger and sheer impossibility of what they're doing is what makes it so much fun. Performers live for the little gasps given off by the audience, or the applause of their impressed classmates.
"Not a lot of people can say they get to do this," Scotti said.
And while aerial dance is becoming more widely performed, it's not as widely taught. This means UNH grads have a leg up -and an arm, and a butt - on other aspiring aerial performers.
Three graduates have already found work as professionals in New York companies. Many students in the class say they're hoping to make a living from it, at least for a few years, after they graduate. (next page »)
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