Aerial modern dance is a sub-genre of modern dance first recognized in the United States in the 1970s. The choreography incorporates an apparatus often attached to the ceiling, allowing performers to explore space in three-dimensions. The ability to incorporate vertical, as well as horizontal movement paths, allows for innovations in choreography and movement vocabulary.
Aerial modern pieces, whether solo or ensemble, often involve partnering. The apparatus used has its own motion, which changes the way a dancer must move in response. The introduction of a new element changes the dancer’s balance, center, and orientation in space. Aerial modern dancers gather annually at the "Aerial Dance Festival" in Boulder, Colorado since its inception in July 1999. Here, workshops, performances, and discussions bring together dancers, gymnasts, circus artists, and other aerial enthusiasts to showcase their own works and learn about new developments in technique and technology.
An early influence on aerial modern dance, Terry Sendgraff, is credited with inventing the "motivity" trapeze.[citation needed] Terry Sendgraff actively performed, choreographed and taught in the San Francisco Bay Area from the early '70s until announcing her retirement in 2005, at the age of 70. The motivity trapeze came about as a result of an exploration on a low-hung circus trapeze. The ropes twisted together, causing the apparatus to spin. By formalizing this, hooking both ropes to a single point of attachment, Ms. Sendgraff used the apparatus to spin, twist, as well as fly in a straight line and in a circle.
Another example of aerial modern dance are the site-specific works of Joanna Haigood of the Zaccho Dance Theatre, and Amelia Rudolph of "Project Bandaloop". Haigood’s work is based on careful research of the history, architecture and societal impact of found spaces, and the translation of these memories into the movements performed in that space[citation needed]. Project Bandaloop combines rock-climbing with dance in performances that scale and/or descend canyons, rock walls, and tall buildings across the world. Video of their outdoor work is sometimes integrated into indoor performances, projected onto screens or trampolines behind the dancers on stage.
There is no regular amateur communities of aerial dancers. Nevertheless some people do on suitable parties where there are appropriate objects for climbing like dance or climb poles or stages dances with elements of aerial dance. As these form of dances are dangerous and possibly destroctous, such dances are nearly always forbidden. Other forms of aerial dance practised by amateurs are non-erotic tabledances where someone dances on multiple tables or similar objects without touching the ground or where the act of getting on or off the stage or table is part of the dance or dances performed on objects the dancer climbed on before.
Aerial modern dance companies include
AXIS Dance Company (Oakland, CA)
battleROYAL arts entertainment projects (Berlin, DE)
Blue Lapis Light (Austin, TX)
Flyaway Productions (San Francisco, CA)
Frequent Flyers Productions[1] (Boulder, CO)
GROUNDED Aerial Dance Theater (New York, NY),[2]
Mir & A Company (Santa Cruz, CA)
O-T-O Dance (Tucson, AZ)
The Cabiri (performance troupe) [3] (Seattle, WA)[4] (Wellington, NZ)
ZUZI! Dance Company, School & Theater (Tucson, AZ)
Fridget Feet - Aerial Dance Theatre
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