Aerial silks originated in France in 1959, with Cirque du Soleil incorporating them into their performances beginning in 1987. Since then they’ve proliferated as an elegant and dynamic performance art that combines poses, inversions and body movements to tell dramatic and evocative stories.
In the past decade, silks have also emerged as a fitness option, with aerial silk gyms cropping up worldwide.
Jenna Algeo was introduced to aerial silks a few years ago. With no background in weight training or dance or choreography, she really didn’t think she had the strength to do silks.
“Yeah, if you're just starting out, it can be really intimidating,” Algeo said. “But it definitely is something that builds up over time, the strength for it and everything. But at any fitness level, [you] can do some form of silks. You don't have to be climbing to the top to be doing silks. You don't have to be doing crazy things. You can be in a knot or doing something that's a little more simple for whatever strength level that you have.”
One gym offering aerial fitness is Fit to Fly in Fort Myers. It’s owned and operated by Katie O’Connell.
Since purchasing the gym, O’Connell’s found that with consistent weekly practice, newbies can perfect sophisticated routines in a relatively short amount of time. She says that newcomers quickly discover the kind of moves they prefer.
“It's just trying to get people comfortable and figuring out what they like best,” O’Connell said. Some people like to be upside down a lot. Some people like to do drops, where you start at the top and then you wrap a certain number of wraps and then when you let go, you'll tumble down to a certain position. Some people prefer to do a lot of more flowy posing, that sort of thing.”
Algeo delights in stacking drops. Sarah Waitkus and Kayla Forte have taken aerial silks in a different direction. They like working as a duo.
“They've been doing some different doubles acts, and it's very cool,” O’Connell said. “It's kind of another unique offshoot, almost a separate apparatus, if you will, because you're holding on to another person in lieu of the silks at some point, and so there's a lot of trust there, obviously. So you need to know who you're performing with and what they're capable of and what you're capable of.”
While most aerialists do silks for the exercise, some love performing.
“There are a lot more national and local competitions and things going on,” O’Connell pointed out. “There are a lot more small local performances and things going on. Things like the sideshow at the Sidney & Berne Art Center. There are a couple of other local studios down in Bonita and Naples that offer local shows here and there. It's become a lot more open to the public. It's become a lot more accessible to people who wanted to try it.”
Whether practicing or performing, silks provide three benefits that are hard to find with other forms of exercise.
The first is concentration. When you’re on the silks, you’re definitely in the moment.
The second is camaraderie. The Fit to Fly aerialists share a close bond.
Jenna Algeo describes the third.
“With the silks, I feel graceful,” Algeo said. “It's because I was taught certain tricks and different sequences. I can then make it my own versus with dance [where] you're kind of out in the open. It's just your body performing for you with the silks. So I think that was a perfect in-between point for me without the dance training, without serious gymnastics training or acrobatics training. This was a nice midpoint for me.”
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Those historians who pinpoint 1959 as the origin of aerial silks reference accounts published in France of a circus student who presented an astonishing act using a long piece of fabric hung from the ceiling. The wraps, falls and suspended poses he included were so impressive and exhilarating that his act gained local media attention.
Other sources credit Andre Simard as founder of the aerial silk movement. In 1987, he was serving as a research and development specialist for Canadian Entertainment Company, which was consulting with a neophyte circus-style performance company by the name of Cirque du Soleil.
Combining his background in Olympic gymnastics, fine art and clowning, Simard came up with new and innovative ways to use gymnastics to impress audiences. Even if he did not invent aerial silks, he unquestionably advanced the use of aerial arts in circus style entertainment.
Silks afforded an unprecedented level of versatility and dramatic impact to performances. The fluidity of the fabric combined with the creative potential of choreography enabled a more expressive and narrative-driven form of aerial art. Performers could now tell stories not just with their bodies, but with the very apparatus they were using, allowing for a seamless integration of performance and storytelling.
Simard continued to collaborate with circus performers and instructors to push the boundaries of what could be achieved with the fabric, experimenting with different types of materials, grips, and rigging techniques. These innovations established the foundational moves of aerial silks and inspired a wave of performers to blend athleticism with artistry in new and exciting ways.
It did not take long for aerial silks to become entrenched as a permanent fixture in the realm of modern performance art.
There’s some dispute over when that actually happened. Some researchers point to the Festival Mondail du Cirque de Demain in 1995 when Isabelle Vaudelle presented aerial silks as a specialty in its own right. Others say aerial silks’ validation actually occurred three years later when she and Isabelle Chasse’ demonstrated their aerial silks abilities in "Quidam," a Cirque du Soleil show that ran from 1996 to 2012.
O’Connell observed that there are several types of aerial apparatuses in addition to silks.
“There’s also aerial rope, which is called the Spanish web sometimes, and the lira, which is the hoop. Those are the most traditional of the aerial routines that have kind of morphed over time. For a long time, it was just a very circus-specific thing.”
But silks are no longer just for circus entertainers.
In the past decade, people from all walks of life have begun incorporating silks into their workout regimens.
Silks focus on upper body and core strength, flexibility and overall body conditioning, with certain body parts working hard to keep the practitioner in a particular stance or pose.
“When they first come in, everybody tells me that they’re not strong enough to do silks,” noted O’Connell. “They tell me they don't have enough arm strength to do silks.”
Algeo certainly had that trepidation.
She came to the gym after exploring fire spinning and gymnastics. But she didn’t feel that she’d developed enough upper body strength to do silks.
“I booked a class one day at Fit to Fly and I have not stopped coming since,” Algeo said. “I've been here two to three times a week for three years now. For me, it started out as just a fun form of exercise. When I was a kid, I always loved Cirque du Soleil and watching those kinds of shows and I think I realized that connection during my first class. I was like, ‘Oh, this is why I like this so much. This is why this is working.’ And I just kept coming to class and enjoying it and making friends, and now I live here. “
As Algeo discovered, aerialists develop upper body and leg strength organically as they do more and more on the silks.
“Silks are a full body workout, to be honest with you,” said O’Connell. “Of course, you do need arm strength for climbing and things like that. But you also need core strength for the inversions that we have. You need to use your legs for climbing as well and you're also using your back.”
“For somebody that's never done it, your strength definitely builds up over time and with consistency,” Algeo observed.
Being hoisted above the ground provides the opportunity to work muscles in brand new ways. Silks have also been found to improve balance and achieve a much stronger connection between body and mind.
“People who do more dancey, flowy poses develop more strength and flexibility because they want to be able to hold those poses longer or take their time getting in and out of them,” O’Connell added. “Whereas with drops, you’re looking at all kinds of different things — flexibility, strength, stability and especially core strength because you need to be able to hold yourself stable while you're moving through the air. It's all mobility, flexibility, strength, stability. We're achieving a broad spectrum of fitness goals, and it happens without them even realizing the gains they’ve made.”
The full-body workout that aerial silks provide, coupled with the exhilaration of hanging and performing tricks several feet off the ground, has led to a surge in aerial fitness studios. Studios like Fit to Fly also offer cross-training opportunities. Toward that end, Fit to Fly operates from Premia Fitness’ workout facility.
“We work in tandem with them,” said O’Connell. “We actually have people that go back and forth. We work with them and some of their students train with us. It’s a great cross-training opportunity. In fact, that seems to be the trend right now. A lot of aerial gyms work with another type of fitness regimen. So our host gym, Premia, employs high-intensity interval training or HIIT. They do 30 to 60 minutes of small group fitness HIIT classes [that alternate between short bursts of intense exercise and brief recovery periods designed to burn calories in a shorter amount of time compared with traditional steady-state cardio]. There's another one up in Tampa that works out of a CrossFit gym. They work together and they share students, space and equipment. So we’re seeing a lot more of that.”
As they improve their skills, many silk aerialists want to showcase their moves and routines. A number of gyms and other venues have sponsored performances and even competitions where performers bedazzle audiences with elaborate tricks, drops and poses that create a thrilling spectacle.
Fit to Fly produces several showcases each year. Its performers have also appeared a number of times at the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center, which features aerialists and fire spinners from The InFLOWencers fire entertainment collective in a back lot outdoor setting. Earlier this summer, the Davis Art Center also staged an indoor event called the Summer Sideshow, in which Fit to Fly’s silk aerialists performed in the grand atrium to music provided by several live bands.
Every student and eventual performer’s learning curve is different. However, their journey begins at the same place – getting comfortable with the silks.
“Each aerialist chooses their own apparatus,” said O’Connell, “Whether that’s the hoop or silks or the rope. A lot of people start with silks because it's the most forgiving and the most approachable.”
Not all silks are the same.
“There are different types of silks,” O’Connell explained. “Some of them are thicker, some are thinner, some are more bouncy. We all grow attached to our own silk. But it’s a process of discovery. So I like to start people off with a little bit of everything in our introductory classes, have them go upside down, have them do some climbing, having them putting their weight on the silks and learning to rely on them. Learning to use them as a tool rather than being afraid of them or being afraid of going upside down, which we don't do a lot in our daily lives.”
As moves are mastered, aerialists begin splicing poses, inversions and drops into sequences or routines.
At Fit to Fly, O’Connell encourages each student to choreograph their own routines.
Of course, she does challenge them with a theme.
“For Halloween, it’s typically carte blanche,” O’Connell said. “That gives them the opportunity to go out and think of, okay, well what Halloween songs do I like? What themes do I like? Do I like vampires, witches, ghosts? And if I'm going to go with this routine, I want to think of a song that kind of reminds me of that or makes me think of it.”
Music plays an important role in any aerial routine. The performer needs to time poses and drops to lulls, drops and crescendos in the music.
“I actually like them to print out the lyrics and the music to the song and write out the different poses or drops they want to put where. Having the students involved in writing their own routines early on is really helpful because it teaches them what they like, what they're interested in. It encourages them to branch out and try something new, and also to kind of perfect some of those moves that they get really comfortable with.”
O’Connell furthers each aerialist’s growth and development by offering a range of classes that introduce and refine aerial skills.
“In addition to aerial silks fitness, we teach aerial silks dancing,” O’Connell noted. “With most of our classes, we have levels from beginner to intermediate and advanced.”
Fit to Fly also offers aerial yoga.
“One of our instructors, Eden [Sanner], is certified in aerial yoga, which is actually a separate certification from aerial silks. And so she asked if she could hang some hammocks here and have a class on Sundays. We started that, I want to say, four or five months ago.”
O’Connell has seen increased interest in aerial silks in just the past year. She attributes that in part to people who’ve seen silks performed by Cirque du Soleil. She also notes that the media is starting to recognize the popularity of the art form.
In 2024, Hallmark released “Romance with a Twist,” in which an ex-dancer pairs with a professional aerialist when he finds himself without a partner for an upcoming silks performance at a local arts festival. “America’s Got Talent” has featured numerous aerial silk acts, with Simon Cowell giving performers consistently high marks, even awarding the golden buzzer to some.
“As silks have become more approachable, it’s grown in popularity and so you're seeing more people who are willing to come out and say, hey, I've been working on my skills for years at this point at my local studio and I'm good and I'm going to show off what my talents are,” said O’Connell. “That's really cool to see, and then also people see that and they go, oh, man, that's really cool.”
Social media has also played a role in increasing the public’s awareness of aerial silks.
“The drops get a lot of attention on platforms like Tik Tok and Instagram,” O’Connell observed. “We're always looking for the bigger, badder drops, as it were. So what you'll see a lot of times on social media are performers stacking drops. That’s where an aerialist does two or more drops in a row. So they'll wrap one and then another and then another, and then all of a sudden, they're all the way at the top, and they'll do three or four drops in a row, and they're each unique and different enough that you can see where the first one stops, and the second one begins. The adrenaline junkies love that part.”
Aerialists performing on parallel silks also garner attention and excitement at showcases and competitions, and on social media as well. Often, the aerialists perform routines that are independent of each other, but O’Connell has noticed a trend toward synchronous routines.
“If you've ever seen a Cirque du Soleil show, they will oftentimes have multiple aerialists doing either the same, similar, or sometimes completely different things all at the same time,” noted O’Connell. “And sometimes the smaller shows will do that too. Often it depends on the type of space you have to perform in. When we do our shows here, we will typically take down all the silks but one, and then we'll all take turns performing on the one just for audience's sake so they're all facing in one direction. But definitely some of the bigger shows take that in. And a lot of the students, especially the kids' classes, they love to do it together, right? Kind of like synchronized swimming. They want to do the same drop at the same time, catch it on camera, all that kind of stuff. So it's a really fun take on that too, learning new drops especially, because then you're not as afraid.”
Algeo admits that she likes the attention that she and her fellow aerialists get at showcases and the Davis Art Center backlot performances, especially from children.
“I'm a teacher so I love seeing kids watch us and seeing their faces when we do drops and cool things like that,” Algeo shared. “I like when people are inspired by it or want to come to class after watching us. That's really fun. I like the attention. I think it's cool.”
O’Connell points out that music also plays an important role in many silk aerial routines.
“So if there's a crescendo or a drop in the music, you could script a drop that would correspond to the music,” said O’Connell. “We encourage students to pick a song and then listen to it over and over again so that they can really know where each beat is, where each crescendo is, where they want to put a drop if they want to put a drop in, where there's a good point to hold a pose for a long time.”
But for practice and training sessions, anything goes.
“Each of the instructors has their own vibe, right? Whether it's Spotify or Amazon Music or whatever, we all have our own playlists that we put on. Some of us more than others, but we all like to give the classes a nice peppy feel. And then, of course, we try to have some that we use for a warm-up and cool-down, which are always very important.”
Beyond exercise, fitness and the attention she gets during demonstrations and performances, the friendships she’s forged and the camaraderie she experiences is the ultimate pay-off for Algeo.
“We love to learn together. We will see a trick online and we will safely watch each other and make sure that we're doing what we need to be doing. We watch out for each other's safety, but we also talk about our personal lives every Tuesday,” said Algeo. “Every Tuesday is our get together night and we have our fun. We all have similar senses of humor, and we hang out outside of this too. So it's really nice to have that community for myself.”
The global reach of aerial silks is a reflection of its versatility and appeal across cultural boundaries. As an art form, it has been adopted and adapted by different countries, each infusing it with its unique cultural essence. Aerial silks have become a staple in international circus festivals, dance performances, and even corporate events, illustrating the art form’s versatility.
This global proliferation has not only elevated aerial silks to a respected art form but has also fostered a cultural exchange, as artists from various backgrounds share techniques, stories, and experiences, enriching the practice and inspiring innovation.
The cultural significance of aerial silks is also evident in its inclusivity and the empowerment it offers to practitioners. As a discipline that celebrates physicality and artistry regardless of background, aerial silks have become a symbol of expression and strength for many, providing a platform for personal growth and community building.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.