Today marks the start of my seventh week working remotely and observing physical distancing to minimize the spread of novel Corona virus and the Covid-19 disease that it causes. Today is also Patriot’s Day, which commemorates the battles of Lexington and Concord at the start of the American Revolutionary War. If this Spring had gone according to plan, I’d be spending this long weekend hiking and climbing in Red Rock Canyon outside Las Vegas, but for the past seven weeks nothing has gone according to plan.
Since I can’t climb this Spring, and can’t travel and can’t hike, I’ve been focusing on another favorite pursuit that has translated pretty well to quarantine conditions: static trapeze.
Under the old normal, my weekly trapeze lesson was the one thing I did for myself and prioritized no matter what else was going on in the week. I would meet my teacher at a local circus school, but with the facility closed for the past month due to pandemic, I have to be creative with my creative outlet.
I feel as if I’m inventing a new art form: Parlor Trapeze. My quarantine setup features a trapeze hanging from a beam in the living room on ropes that are maybe five feet long, and when I stand on the ground the bar is at my sternum.
Many of the sequences and moves I’ve been practicing can’t be done with so little space, but with the bar so low I suddenly have a floor to play with, which adds a dimension I’ve never explored before— I can dance with my trapeze as if it were a partner.
What I’m learning is that I’m a much more confident aerialist than dancer— my floor work needs lots of work, but it’s an incredible creative challenge to choreograph movement that goes from the floor to the bar and back again and tells a single story, and adapt the moves I know to the space I have.
When the pandemic is under control and we reach the next new normal, I’ll be glad to see my teacher in person instead of over video, and glad to return to full height. Until then I’m incredibly grateful that I still have the opportunity to play with movement, keep my hands calloused and my body strong!
