Friday, the Brown Aerial Arts Society will put on its fourth annual spring showcase, featuring an underwater theme and titled “Aquaerials.” The show will be organized in several different acts with scenes played out both on the surface and underwater. The show will feature a wide range of ocean-related characters such as surfers, pirates, sailors, otters and underwater creatures such as Lorelei, a German river monster.
“Aquaerials” will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. at Alumnae Hall. Pre-sale tickets will be sold for $5 Thursday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in J. Walter Wilson.
“Every year the show has been getting a little more elaborate,” said Jake Small ’17, co-president of the Brown Aerial Arts Society. “At first, it was just apparatuses on the stage, but now we’ve got costumes, makeup and elaborate lighting.”
It has taken months of hard work and practice to prepare for the upcoming show. A theme was voted on by members of the Aerial Arts Society, and performers created their own acts, costumes and characters. The club then worked to unify the characters and acts into a cohesive story line.
“I’m really excited that our club can show off how diverse people’s talents are,” said Kathryn Samp ’18, director of publicity for the group. “For example, we have someone performing on rings this year, as well as contortion acts and some fun surprises.”
The Aerial Arts Society was originally co-founded by Alexis Shusterman ’13 and Zack Bodinger ’13 in 2010. Since then, the performing arts club has grown to 30 regular members, with 20 to 30 students irregularly attending the club’s weekly beginner practice.
Dorothy Jiang ’19, who attended a weekly beginner practice at the start of the semester, said, “the more experienced people were students who taught us how to use the equipment and safely get on and off. It was a really cool experience, but the instruction was informal.”
The club has great ambitions for the role of beginner practice next year. “A lot of people say that they don’t want to join (the Aerial Arts Society) because they don’t have aerial experience. I want to convince people like that to join,” Small said. He added that with no previous experience, it would take approximately two months of learning and practicing to put a whole routine together.
The Aerial Arts Society puts on a winter showcase in December that is much more informal than this week’s upcoming show. The winter show typically features new members who started aerial arts at the beginning of the semester. The new members participate in an initial process that includes attendance at a minimum of three beginner practices for safety reasons, Samp said. After attending three practices, interested students become official members of the club and can start participating in regular practices that include more complex movements and advanced knowledge of the aerial arts.
