Aerial Skills

Chains, Hoop, Rope, Trapeze and Silks

Aerial is acrobatics performed in the air on a suspended apparatus.

Silks is a type of aerial skill in which one or more artists perform aerial acrobatics while hanging from a long length of fabric suspended from a frame or ceiling. One variation is the hammock.

A trapeze is a short horizontal bar hung by ropes or metal straps from a support. Trapeze acts may be static, spinning (rigged from a single point), swinging or flying, and may be performed solo, double, triple or as a group act.

Rope, or Corde Lisse is a skill or act that involves acrobatics on a vertically hanging rope. The name is French for "smooth rope".

Hoop (also known as the lyra, aerial ring or cerceau/cerceaux') is a circular steel apparatus (resembling a hula hoop) suspended from the ceiling or a frame, on which artists may perform aerial acrobatics. It can be used static, spinning, or swinging.

And chains consists of two loops of chains, or one length of chain hanging vertically (resembling Spanish Web). This is my favourite apparatus and also the most painful to train in. Performers may train wearing gloves and heavy fabrics such as denim and leather. It's hardcore stuff!