Aerial Silks

I love aerial silk dancing, I remember when I saw my first aerialist in 2007 at the bite show in Vegas at the stratosphere and decided I absolutely had to try it. Here is a the video of that aerialist, the woman who inspired me to learn this incredible but complex artform.




Already being an experienced aerial pole artist, I wondered how different could it really be? Well I found silks to definitely kick my butt in more ways than I could imagine. I remember coming home and trying to research it. I typed in all sorts of things into the search engine to attempt to find it. I think I typed in things like ribbon dancing, air ribbon dancing, scarf acrobatics, material gymnastics, etc. Finally found it after all sorts of searching. It comes up under a few names; Aerial silk, Aerial Fabric, Aerial Tissue, Contortion in Silk, Ballet in silk, antigravity yoga, suspended dance, etc.

There are 2 main types of fabric used for aerial silk dancing. Those are Polyester Interlock and Tricot (Chiffon)

Tricot is a low stretch fabric which makes it easier to climb and Polyester interlock is a high stretch fabric which is a little more difficult to climb but it does cushion during drops, though you want to be careful you don't stretch as far down as the ground. It is recommended to get silks that are between 75' to 110' wide for adults but for children you can use 60' wide fabric.

Please be aware that there are two main types of polyester, PET (polyethylene terephthalate) and PCDT (or poly-1, 4-cyclohexylene-dimethylene terephthalate). Please not that PET is stronger than PCDT, though PCDT is more stretchy than PET is. Its good to note the type of yarn (filament, spun, or blended) as well as the size of yarn (denier). The higher the denier, the thicker the yarn as well as strong. For spun poly, 35 denier and above is strong enough for use in aerial fabrics.

We at Aerial Empowerment carry 110' wide low stretch tricot it is the most perfect type of fabric I have personally found and performed on for aerials, its a low/medium stretch, its easy to climb, it cushions well during drops but doesn't stretch you beyond a safe distance and it is incredibly sturdy. It also has a tensile strength of approximately 3000lbs. I know someone who out of pure science decided to tow a truck using our fabric and it didn't break! I don't know about you but that makes me feel pretty safe.

Our Aerial Fabric comes in the colors: Aqua, Black, Brown, Cloud, Pink, Yellow, Lilac, Lime Green, Baby blue, Mint, Royal Blue, Purple, Crimson Red, Forest Green, Turquoise, White, and Dark Red.

Here is one of my favorite silk performances on youtube.