Links
From Silkworms
Contents |
aerial silk links
these pages
I practice in the Boston area with a loose assortment of other aerialists who call ourselves the Silkworms and meet once a week at Spontaneous Celebrations in Jamaica Plain, where many of the photos in these pages were taken.
The main driving force behind the Silkworms and the rental of the Spontaneous practice space, Phil Servita, teaches aerial classes at another studio space in Littleton now, Flying Squirrel Consortium, where many others of the photos in these pages were taken.
Phil and his wife Liz Manicatide, both of whom appear in some photos on this site, perform together as Aerialchemy; they have performed with a local circus organization called the Madcap Rumpus Society, as well as the somewhat-related Boston Circus Guild. A number of other aerialists who practice with the Silkworms can also be found through the Boston Circus Guild.
Most of the photos in these pages were taken by my wife, Molly Tomlinson.
other links
A Seattle aerialist, Bev Sobelman, has another wiki project with very similar aims to this one, the Seattle Circus Wiki. At the moment it seems to have a greater focus on Corde Lisse (rope), though most corde lisse tricks work (mostly the same way) on silks. Her wiki has a lot more depth about drops than this one does right now, and a lot of links to video.
There's a collection of silks video tutorials on the German website Feuershow, under "Tuch".
A Colorado aerialist, Rebekah Leach, now has an online pictorial library of silks moves taken from her book, Beginning Aerial Fabric Instruction Manual.
There now appears to be a lively conversation about aerial terminology on Facebook in a group named Creating a common language for aerial artists.
I and a number of the Silkworms initially learned from Cypher Zero, who's based in New York City but who was teaching classes in the Boston area also for a while.
The big fish in the small pond of east coast aerial instruction is the New England Center for Circus Arts (NECCA). I've taken a couple of classes there, and have tried to incorporate their terminology into this site.
Elsie Smith at NECCA attributed the bicycle climb to Frédérique Debitte.
Elsie attributed the Rebecca split to Rebecca Leonard.
Bev attributed the sticky crotch climb to Terry Crane.
I learned the double pirate figure eight drop from Jill Maio, who came up with the name, but I think the drop is from NECCA. Jill recently opened a Boston-local aerial studio called Aircraft Aerial Arts.
I learned the double knee drop from Rachel Stewart, who teaches aerial skills in Boston under the name Esh Aerial Arts. She referred to it as a "Deena drop" after Deena Marcum Frank of NECCA, but i'm not sure if that was meant as an attribution of the origin of the drop or just who she learned it from.
books
There aren't very many instructional books about aerial silks that I've been able to find.
Rebekah Leach has just published a good introductory silks manual, Beginning Aerial Fabric; her website also lists an Intermediate manual, but I haven't yet had a chance to look at that. We exchanged some email about terminology for the beginning manual, though, so I'm quite excited about it. :)
Carrie Heller's The Aerial Circus Training and Safety Manual is good but focuses much more on static trapeze and rope, with the aerial silks section a bit of an afterthought (though of course a lot of things can be translated over, especially from rope).
Yvette Challande has a surprisingly thorough book cataloging aerial silks moves and positions in rather terse terms, in French, with good illustrations: Méthodologie de corde et tissus.
dvds
I haven't seen any of these dvds yet, but apparently Nimblearts, Elsie and Serenity Smith's circus company, have just come out with an aerial silks instructional dvd.
Fred Deb also offers an instructional dvd on her website.
Cori Woolfe offers what appear to be three dvd and pdf manual sets.
