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Many children dream of running away to the circus, but for members of the Albuquerque Aerialist Collective, the circus is just downtown.
The members of the collective gather in a warehouse on Fifth Street to practice and perfect various circus arts and acrobatics, performing gravity-defying stunts on the trapeze, aerial silks and the lyra, which is a steel hoop suspended from the ceiling.
“A lot of people think we do a flying trapeze like you would see in a big-tent circus,” said Lauren Hawk, a founding member. “But we do a static trapeze where you do a lot of contortion and balancing work within the structure. The fabrics are two ribbons hanging down from the ceiling and you climb around and hang upside down and tie yourself in knots.”
The group came together after members met each other through other workshops, events and a mutual interest in exploring circus arts. Several had met through circus workshops and intensives with Wise Fool New Mexico, a theater company in Santa Fe.
“We couldn’t find a place to do aerial fabrics in Albuquerque,” said Kristen Woods, another founding member of the group. “We really wanted a space where you could just go in and practice at any time.”
Woods and nine other aerialists found the space to do just that in the Factory on 5th Art Space and officially formed the collective in January 2012. Since then, the group has put on several performances and a slew of workshops and has more than doubled in membership. The workshops the collective offers are open to everyone. These include trapeze and fabrics classes, which Hawk said are great for beginners, as well as classes for people who are more advanced. The collective just started offering stilting classes and will have its first clowning class April 2.
The interest in traditional circus arts and practices may seem obscure, but there is an undercurrent in many communities, Woods said.
“I feel like we’re really redefining what circus is right now because it’s not the big tent with the ringleader and the lion tamer and the clowns and the Dumbo-type scene,” Hawk said. “It’s very different, but all the skills and the art that went into that have stayed alive in a lot of different communities just under the surface.”
Hawk and Woods said the process of growing and changing as a collective can be slow. At times, it’s as difficult as acquiring the physical skills necessary to master the tricks and movements of aerial acrobatics, Hawk said.
“You watch newer people come in and struggle with the same things you used to struggle with. There are always those physical feats that you think you’ll never be able to accomplish, and then one day it clicks and you do it, and that can be the happiest moment ever,” she said.
Although the group is still finding its direction and vision, Woods said all members are interested in participating, building a community for circus arts in Albuquerque and sharing and expanding the knowledge they already have. She said every member brings unique influences, aesthetics and abilities to the collective.
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Woods said other circus art groups in Albuquerque include the UNM Juggling Club, Roustabout Arts, AirDance New Mexico and independent practitioners of acro-yoga, slacklining and other circus arts.
“Once I started networking, I realized there were all these fibers, but there was nothing weaving them together, and I think to some extent we’ve started doing that,” Woods said.
Hawk said the group’s members have a long way to go to keep making connections within the circus community and the greater Albuquerque community. Membership is easy to obtain, she said, and anyone is welcome to come to workshops, monthly member meetings or the occasional, free, open training sessions to see how quickly the impossible can become a reality.
“The greatest difficulty can be realizing there are these seemingly impossible physical things you’re trying to do, but the most gratifying thing is starting to realize that none of them are impossible,” Hawk said.
For more information,
“like” Albuquerque Aerialist Collective on Facebook,
visit
AlbuquerqueAerialistCollective.org,
email
AlbuquerqueAerialistCollective@gmail.com
or call (505) 206-0160
1715 Fifth St. N.W.
