As mentioned in the last blog post, this past week was the 12th Grazer Acrobatic Festival organized by the local circus group Akrosphäre, which I attended. It consisted of 4 days of acrobatic and aerial workshops, in different apparatuses, and spanning a broad array of circus disciplines.
During the whole week, I took the opportunity to learn some partner acrobatics, a discipline I have never tried before. Similarly to the acro dance I examined in the last post, the learning curve for me was strongly lessened by the fact that I partnered up with an experienced base, and was able to do moves (as a flyer) such as a Front Plank on L-base and a 2-high on the first try.
However, there was a much more interesting discovery for me than just the ability to easily learn new moves because of a strong partner (which is something I already explained in the last blog post). This festival gathered people from all over the world – Canada, USA, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Italy, Croatia, Germany, and Austria, just to name a few. Yet, despite the diverse backgrounds that all of them came from, it seemed that they all spoke the same language of acrobatics.
In contrast to silks, there are some internationally used naming conventions for partner acrobatics (linked below), and as such a common language is created, which makes it easier to enter into the field.
When talking to some of these international acrobats, I learned that the entry-level tricks and the basic positions were all fairly standardized, but when going into more advanced, novel tricks, there were, of course, variations in the names that people came up with for them. However, even if the advanced shape remixes could vary in name, there was still an understanding that could be created due to the fact that, in partner acrobatics, the fundamental positions (L-base, standing), holds (feet to hand (F2H), hand to hand (H2H), reverse F2H, reverse H2H), and some styles of movement (Icarian, washing machines, whips, pops) are all universally understood because of their international usage.
This led me to think about the importance of sharing a common language when teaching and learning silks. In one week-long workshop I took a while ago, the teacher spent 30 minutes at the beginning of the first class just explaining the names she uses for the base knots in silks (foot lock, hip key, hip lock, S-wrap, bat) to make sure everyone was on the same page.
In contrast to the silks workshops I took in this festival, the teacher didn’t have the same consideration and there were some slight hiccups in communication. When asking the class to do a dancer’s foot lock or a crochet, half of the students didn’t know what she was asking them to do. The former was simply because some of them had never heard of the concept of a dancer’s foot lock, but the latter was because everyone had a different name for what the teacher called “crochet”, ranging from “bat”, “cross back”, “angel”, “invert and hook from outside”, “x on the back”, etc.
In researching this difference, I learned that one source tried to apply a similar naming taxonomy to silks move to solve the communication problem (linked below), wherein moves were classified by base knot (foot lock, hip key, S-wrap, etc.), action (roll-up, invert, pike, etc.), and shape (star, arabesque, bowsprit lean, etc.). While this is a good attempt, it still lacks the reach that the partner acrobatics taxonomy has. Plus, the shape names that this source decided on are just the ones used in that specific studio, and as such would still require explaining to newcomers.
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ACCOMPANYING LINKS
Sources:
- Partner acrobatics manual: https://partneracrobatics.com/manual/
- Partner acrobatics moves alphabetized, internationally used resource: https://www.jacobbrownacro.com/
- One of many attempts to establish a naming taxonomy for aerial silks, wherein moves are classified by base knot, action, and shape: https://www.aerialdancing.com/blog/aerial-taxonomy-explained/
