Intro to Aerial Straps

Come try aerial straps: a high-flying, excitingly dynamic discipline with professional straps artist and instructor, Alex Oliva! In this 90 minute introductory workshop, you'll learn the basic positions and skills to begin your straps journey. After a thorough warm-up, you'll learn proper placement in positions like meathook, nutcracker, reverse nutcracker/scorpion, and support position. We'll explore both artistic and technical aspects of spinning, and we'll finish by taking it into the air and learning beats and swings! You'll leave with the proper tools to continue conditioning and building these skills across a variety of aerial disciplines.

We will have 3 sets of straps with a max of 6 participants, so if more than 3 students register, participants will take turns. This workshop will be offered on Monday, June 27th, and Wednesday, June 29th,  so feel free to register for both if you want more straps time! Note you must register by June 23rd or 25th for the workshops on June 27th and 29th, respectively.

Prerequisites:

Participants should have the ability to invert cleanly on another aerial apparatus and be able to hang in the air from two arms with engaged shoulders for at least 10 seconds.

About the Instructor:

Alex Oliva (he/him) is a circus and movement artist based in Boston. He specializes in aerial straps, Cyr wheel, and contemporary dance. He is currently touring throughout the US with Taconhy Entertainment's "Circus on Ice". As a performer, Alex has dazzled audiences at the Eccentric House of Yes (NYC), performed a modern rendition of the Nutcracker with CirqOvation (Syracuse, NY), and starred in the circus film "Dark's Carnival" by Circus of the Moon (Santa Cruz, CA). He is currently in his third season with Urbanity Underground (Boston), a contemporary dance group, where he dances in several stage and film productions a year. Alex received his circus training under Michael Lanphear (Boston), Victor Fomine, Angelica Bongiovonni, and Eric Deschenes (Montreal). He is currently a resident at the Commonwealth Circus Center in Boston where he also teaches. Prior to circus, he received training in contemporary and classical dance for 6 years, and in artistic gymnastics for 5 years where he specialized in pommel horse and parallel bars.