Some ETSU students will be flying high this summer, literally. They will take off from East Tennessee State’s Brooks Gymnasium. Who knows where they’ll go from there.
ETSU’s Division of Theatre and Dance will host an Aerial Dance Workshop open to anyone 12 and older in the lower portion the gym the week of June 6-12 featuring master aerial dance instructor Jayne Bernasconi.
A 13-year veteran of aerial dance, Bernasconi said she was thrilled to bring the art form to Northeast Tennessee.
“I was so excited when I was asked to come.” Bernasconi said. “It’s like, ‘Whoa,’ we get to introduce this to a whole new part of the country.”
Bernasconi, who holds a master’s degree in dance education, is a professor of modern dance and choreography at Towson University.
She runs a professional school, Air Dance Bernasconi in Baltimore and has shared the stage with Cirque du Soleil performers on various occasions.
That expertise, along with four instructors from her studio, another master teacher and three assistants, will help her instruct attendees on topics including conditioning, low-flying trapeze and aerial choreography.
It all starts, she said, by teaching students how to speak the language of aerial dance.
“Students are going to spend a lot of time learning what we call vocabulary, like skills or tricks,” she said. “The different vocabulary have names like ‘Lion in the Tree’ or ‘Pendulum.’
“Once they learn those skills, they learn how to string them together and create a dance. They can expect a lot of swinging, a lot of fun and a lot of experimenting.”
Dancers, gymnasts and even swimmers are good candidates to become aerial dancers, she said, because many of the skills they use translate well to the medium.
The main requirement, however, is to be in good shape. “People have e-mailed me already and asked me if they need to be strong to do this,” she said. “I tell them, ‘No, you don’t, you can do some push-ups and sit ups but you gain the strength as you go along.'”
Aerial dance is a combination of circus and modern dance techniques that were first developed on the West Coast in the 1970s.
Aerialists, as the dancers are called, use either a single-point trapeze or silks – long fabrics suspended from the ceiling they wrap around their arms or legs – to move horizontally, vertically and even upside down with their momentum. Those who chose to attend the camp full time will receive five days of instruction from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., she said, and will perform a routine in an informal recital the last day of the workshop that will be open to the public.
Those routines can take performers to higher than 15 feet above the stage floor, Bernasconi said, but the equipment used and the precautions taken setting it up provides a safe experience.
ETSU purchased eight new silks and trapezes, she said, and professionals such as ETSU theater professor Dr. Delbert Hall will oversee the setup.
Hall, a nationally certified rigger who has done work for Cirque Du Soleil in the U.S. and in Europe, said the setup of the lower gymnasium in Brooks is ideal for the needs of aerial dance.
“Because it has lots of large I-beams to support the stands above it,” he said. “It gives us all kinds of places to hang our aerial apparatus. We’ll be able to put up between 18 and 20 apparatus and have them hanging all the time. We’ve got a facility that is phenomenal for this type of work, and we’re going to take full advantage of it.”
The setup will allow more students to utilize the rigging at the same time, Hall said, and help students learn as much as they can from Bernasconi and her fellow instructors.
“The caliber of instructions we’re bringing in makes it a great opportunity,” Hall said. “We’re bringing some of the best in the nation here.”
Even though the workshop will feature world-class instructors and equipment, ETSU freshman Leah Needham, a graphic design major, said the chance to learn such a unique style of dance was enough to catch her attention.
“There are lots of opportunities to take ballet or jazz or other basic kinds of dance,” said Needham, who has been dancing since age three. “But how often do you get a chance to take something like this? I think it will be a really good experience to broaden your horizons of what dance can be.”
Ultimately, that is what Bernasconi and Hall hope to the workshop will do.
“People should could with an open mind,” she said. “And if they have a curiosity about flying they should definitely come check it out.
For more information on the class, call Bernasconi at 466-600-1305 or e-mail her at jbernasc@towson.edu or Hall at 423-773-4255 and halld@etsu.edu.

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