Mick McKiernan
The popular performance troupe experiments with new ways to soar.
After the Boys and Girls Club on Taft Street shuts down for the night, members of Cycropia Aerial Dance arrive, pulling down trapezes and silks rigged into the ceiling of the gym.
The company is putting in late nights these days, preparing 10 dance works for Contraption, an upcoming performance at Memorial Union’s Shannon Hall on June 5-6 commemorating the troupe’s 25th anniversary.
Prior to rehearsing “Kaleidoscope,” an aerial silks dance with nine performers, cast members joke and jostle as they line up to make their entrances, spraying rosin on their palms. They position slender mats beneath the silks. The mats don’t appear to offer much of a cushion if things go awry, and will be eliminated as the production approaches. “There’s no flippy-floppy at performance time,” company member Jess Clark says with a laugh. As the music begins, the performers snap into focus.
Initially, the dancers take long gliding leaps, skimming the floor as they swing in large circles suspended on jewel-toned silks. They swiftly ascend to the top of the hanging fabric, using impressive upper body strength, before spinning down the length of the fabric in an improbably slinky and smooth spiral.
This combination of grace and danger is what makes Cycropia’s work resonate with audiences (that, and a splash of “I wish I could do that” envy). Its annual free show at the Orton Park Festival, where members swing from one of the park’s enormous oak trees, is enormously popular.
Contraption isn’t the first of Cycropia’s indoor shows, but the group is taking a financial risk by booking three shows at a venue with over 1,000 seats. It’s been 11 years since the group last performed in the Union’s theater.
But risk-taking is part of Cycropia’s ethos, and the dancers hope those Orton fans and a new audience will move indoors to see the group flying from new contraptions in a traditional theater space.
Aerialist Luv Joy Seamon, the show’s creative director and one of the collective’s choreographers, says challenges also present creative opportunities, and the group has come up with “more artful ways of weaving things together from the ground to the air,” using aerial apparatus in unusual ways.
Cycropia dancers come from a variety of backgrounds, including ballet, modern dance, diving, gymnastics, contact improv, yoga and martial arts. But all seem drawn to the experience of flight and the adrenaline that can accompany it. These daredevils are both artists and athletes who offer Madison a different way of seeing and thinking about dance.
Kenneth Loud was an earthbound modern dancer who did lighting and sound work for Cycropia’s first performance in 1989. He couldn’t resist the allure and began taking trapeze classes and performing soon after. He says Cycropia was in the vanguard of aerial dance during those early years.
Kari Dickinson, a mother of two who works for UW’s School of Education, studied dance seriously in her youth. Five years ago, she stumbled upon Cycropia’s introductory low-flying trapeze class for adults. She initially thought of it as a new way to exercise and quickly found it addictive. Dickinson, who’ll be performing in two pieces, says audience members may be tempted to take flight after coming to the show.
For those who come away from Contraption feeling the need to swing, the Madison area has a burgeoning circus arts scene. Classes, workshops and camps abound. In addition to Cycropia’s own offerings, Madison Circus Space and the Mazomanie Movement Arts Center (home of Wild Rumpus Circus) are drawing in students of all ages and skill levels. A lot of cross-pollination between the groups occurs, because many Cycropia members teach at the other venues. Some of the options beyond trapeze include specialties like lyra (an aerial hoop), aerial silks and aerial pole.
Dickinson says curious audience members should give aerial arts a try. And, she adds, there’s a reason people get hooked: “There’s a real sense of freedom about it — that sensation of flying. I used to love to swing as a kid, and it’s like that, a very liberating experience. Also there is the challenge of it. You get that sense of accomplishment, but there is always something new to learn.”
