Aerial experts prepare to wow with new production

The high-flying ensemble has been at work for more than a year to create the original piece.

By Elizabeth Shepherd • March 20, 2019 1:30 am
Glen Easley has graduated from aerial student to professional under the tutelage of Esther Edelman, director of “Secrets I Can’t Remember: Aerial Dance and Theater All Mixed Up.” He’ll perform the show with other cast members at Open Space for Arts & Community (Courtesy Photo).
Glen Easley has graduated from aerial student to professional under the tutelage of Esther Edelman, director of “Secrets I Can’t Remember: Aerial Dance and Theater All Mixed Up.” He’ll perform the show with other cast members at Open Space for Arts & Community (Courtesy Photo).

Local aerial artists will debut “Secrets I Can’t Remember: Aerial Dance and Theater All Mixed Up,” at four performances beginning tonight.

Performers will include Esther Edelman, who is also the show’s director, and Glenn Easley, Julie Gibson and Nehara Kalev.

The show is a completely new, original piece that the high-flying ensemble has been at work to create for more than a year.

According to Edelman, the title and theme of the show comes from her fascination with observing the process of memory in herself and those close to her.

“I’ve been intrigued with the endless loop of forgetting and remembering, that place of repeated searching and questions,” she said.

The resulting show, she said, will be an evening of acrobatic dance that conveys “blurred lines and edges,” where characters collide, meld and search for the elusive epiphany of “aha” moments.

All of the performers are accomplished aerialists. Edelman has decades of experience dangling from silks, both as a performer and teacher. Gibson and Easley are former students she now works with professionally at events including Moisture Festival and Open Air.

“They were passionate, worked hard and developed their skills very quickly,” Edelman said of her former students.

The newest member of the group, Kalev, is a professional dancer.

The show will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Sunday, March 21, 22 and 24, and 2 p.m. Saturday, March 23, at Open Space for Arts & Community. Tickets, $20, are on sale at secrets.brownpapertickets.com.