Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/171618
Aeriosa Aeriosa The suspension of disbelief BY PAUL HERATY | PHOTOS TIM MATHESON, DOMENIC SCHAEFER Gravity is the bane of most dancers and choreographers. They struggle against it for years. Many will spend countless hours in the studio perfecting their technique. All in a vain effort to loosen gravity's tenacious grip – to lift the body higher, to leap farther, to spin longer and faster, and to make it all look effortless. But over the last 10 years, a small Vancouver-based dance company has taken a radically different route. Julia Taffe and her group of dancers use mountaineering skills and climbing hardware to work with gravity, rather than against it. No pointe shoes, no skirts of tulle and feathers. Instead, they have carabiners, pulleys, mechanical braking systems, climbing harnesses, rope and running shoes. These are the tools the dancers of Aeriosa use to perform. With gravity as a partner, the company creates vertical dance – awe-inspiring spectacles on the sides of buildings, or on sheer cliffs of rock; performances that are strange, disconcerting and breathtaking at the same time. Twenty years ago, Taffe was in Winnipeg on the same well-worn career path that most young dancers follow – a slow progress from page 12 I Vancouver Foundation l Spring 2012 p12-13_Aeriosa.indd 12 6/6/12 10:54:14 AM