Build your aerial skills into a fully realized performance piece in this 4-week series!

Act Creation Classes:
Sundays, 1:45 - 3:45 PM
Oct 1 & 15, Nov 12, Dec 1st

Dress Rehearsal:
Saturday Dec 9, 8:45 AM - 3:45 PM

Performances:
Saturday Dec 16th, 7:00 - 10:00 PM @ Om Factory’s Winter Party
Sunday Dec 17th, 5:30 - 7:30 PM @The Slipper room NYC. (Fees apply.)

Cost:
Solo Act:

• Early Bird (by September 17): $500
• After September 17: $600

Duo Act:*

• Early Bird (by September 17): $600
• After September 17: $700
  *(when registering as a duo act, only one person needs to enroll)

Additional Performance at The Slipper Room Per act +$200

Member discount:
15% FIXED

Description:

Aerial Performance & Act Creation is a two-hour four-session workshop series focusing on the process of aerial act development. One week after the series concludes, participants will present their acts in a Cabaret Evening at OM Factory, with an additional chance to perform at the renowned, iconic venue The Slipper Room (extra fee applies). 

In this workshop, we will explore performance, musicality, story, character, and audience engagement through movement, experimentation, and play—both in the air and on the ground! The tools and techniques of this workshop are designed to help everyone from first-time performers to seasoned professionals, and anyone in between. Lastly, costumes and confidence come into play as we polish your act. Choose your favorite apparatus from silks, lyra, rope, hammock, or a duo act with a friend! Participants are encouraged to dream up anything their imaginations want to explore. NOTE: Students must be able to attend all sessions and be able to perform skills on the apparatus of their choice prior to enrolling.

Prerequisites:
Must be able to invert from the ground or air without additional assistance

Level:
Intermediate

Attendance:
Minimum: 4
Maximum: 8

About the Instructor:
Fran has a passion for coaching and choreographing on various aerial apparatus. Her focused direction on form, technique, and conditioning, her ability to rapidly assess each individual strengths and needs, along with her vast aerial vocabulary, offer students opportunity to achieve their goals safely, and advance them into the next level of training and performance.
With a background in theater and dance, she took to the air originally as the flyer in a 2-woman acrobatic duo, performing in the US and abroad for 17 years. It was during this time that she also found her love for performing in the air, and she and her acro partner quickly incorporated her aerial choreography into their shows. Initially performing on Spanish Web and Trapeze, she began to explore silks, corde lisse, lyra, aerial net, harness, and duos. She also spent 5 years learning Flying trapeze, achieving a number of tricks out of lines. Her nickname became: Frantastic! 
Some of her performing credits include Late Night with David Letterman, Lincoln Center Outdoors and with the Little Orchestra Society, the Slipper Room, Big Apple Circus, Dixon Place, Pavel Zustiak Dance Co, Madison Square Garden: Phish Concerts, and in events working for Chezzam, Patricia Birch, Cirque-tacular, Heliummm, and Lululemon Athletica. Her signature Skybody aerial classes have been hailed by Good Morning America, Live with Regis and Kelly, TV Guide Network’s Hollywood Bodies, Shape Mag, NY Magazine, Allure and Vogue. Some of her favorite aerial mentors are Brett Womack, Juliana Neves, Terry Beeman, the San Francisco Circus Center, Tanya Gagne, and Kevin O’Connor. She is certified in Personal Training and Group Fitness, Yamuna Body Rolling, and is a YA certified 200 hr ISHTA Yoga instructor.

Instagram: @fran.sperling