

August 12 - 14, 2022
Aerial Silks Focus
with Rain Anya
Co-Artistic Director
Paper Doll Militia

The Southeast Circus Retreat is a new weekend program that is combining elements from a retreat, an apparatus meeting and workshop weekends. Here's how:
Retreat: This is time for you to work on yourself and be in a non-judgmental environment free of people that you might teach.
Apparatus Meeting: Like a rope or trapeze meeting, you can meet up with your friends from miles away in person to skill share.
Workshop Weekend: Tired of noodling around on the silks and need some instruction? That's why Rain is here! To give you some shiny nuggets to jump start your creativity.
Fee: $400
Price Increase to $500 after July 25
10% off for 3 or more participants from the same studio
Fee Includes open practice and all workshops. Must sign-up for workshops in advance.
Fee does not include accommodations and food.
Contact us if you need payment plan options.
Eligible Participants: Ages 18+ Must be a teacher, professional performer or an emerging professional (you have a day job but get paid to perform). Please make sure you meet the workshop prerequisites. *Note that all participants can take the weekend at their own pace, there is not a pre-requisite test, being generally comfortable with these concepts is ideal.
If you are unsure or have questions please email.
Open Practice: A time to personally train, skill share or work with a partner on anything from technique, choreography, business chats and other disciplines. The studio space and lobby is yours as long as you are respectful of volume levels for Rain's classes.
Housing Options:
There are hotels and AirBnB's nearby. More details to come.
For the Community Workshop with Rain Anya Sunday at 2pm click the link below.
Workshop Descriptions
Never-Ending String
Silks
An exciting look at longer sequences where we explore limitless choreographic options that all stem from one origin wrap. Through this discovery process you will learn advanced fabric theory techniques and find unique body shapes as you follow the never-ending string.
Prequisites:
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Students must have solid understanding of intermediate skills including same side wrap (catchers) and opposite side wraps (cross catchers), hip key, s-wrap, and various footlocks
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Endurance to stay in the air for 3 - 5 min at a time
-
Ability to invert (without cheating) multiple times throughout the duration of the workshop
The Wonderful World Of Wheeldowns
Silks
Wheeldowns, Helicopter, Windmills, whatever you name it, this skill harnesses some of the quintessential body mechanics in aerial arts. Learning how to control all the elements of a sideways rotation, and make it look gorgeous is a skill every aerialist should have in their tool bag. In this workshop we focus on the technique and muscular engagement of the skill, in addition to playing with speed, wrapping theory, and choreographic ways in and out of your wheeldown.
Prequisites:
-
Students must have solid understanding of intermediate skills including same side wrap (catchers) and opposite side wraps (cross catchers), hip key, s-wrap, and various footlocks
-
Endurance to stay in the air for 3 - 5 min at a time
-
Ability to invert (without cheating) multiple times throughout the duration of the workshop
Beyond the Wheeldown
Silks
This is an optional Part 2 to Wonderful World of Wheel downs where we dig deeper into sequences that can come before or after a wheeldown or skip the wheeldown all together and just use the S-wrap. It’s all about theory and sequencing.
Prequisites:
-
Students must have solid understanding of intermediate skills including same side wrap (catchers) and opposite side wraps (cross catchers), hip key, s-wrap, and various footlocks
-
Endurance to stay in the air for 3 - 5 min at a time
-
Ability to invert (without cheating) multiple times throughout the duration of the workshop
Radical Rotation
Silks
In this workshop we will look into the directionality of tricks on aerial silks. We will be taking a forward rolling drop and turn it into a backward rolling drop and vise versa. This is be digging into fabric theory to understand how wraps form the direction of movement. Great for getting new fun material and
building up a better understanding of aerial silks.
Prequisites:
-
Students must have solid understanding of intermediate skills including same side wrap (catchers) and opposite side wraps (cross catchers), hip key, s-wrap, and various footlocks
-
Endurance to stay in the air for 3 - 5 min at a time
-
Ability to invert (without cheating) multiple times throughout the duration of the workshop
-
Must be comfortable with basic forward and backwards dives
Vertical Theatre Method
Multi-Apparatus (or preferred apparatus)
The Vertical Theatre Method is an investigation of aerial arts with the focal point of theatricality and authenticity of both movement and content. The Method has been in development since 2007 by artists Rain Anya and Sarah Bebe Holmes. This workshop is a performative based workshop exploring the expressive nature of aerials using improvisation, physical theatre, musicality, character, and exercises in stage presence. Layering your aerial work with creativity and content, we will work with with techniques for expressing human emotion and storytelling within the movement. Looking at creative approaches to building an act or performance piece, this workshop is for students who feel comfortable on an apparatus enough that they can explore beyond the tricks.
Prequisites:
-
This workshop is open to any level of aerialist and is best suited to students who feel comfortable on an apparatus enough that they can explore beyond the tricks.
Rain Anya
With her 3 decades of experience on stage in theatre, dance, music, and circus, Rain’s life’s work is in the integration of circus arts with other performance and movement disciplines. Rain is co-founder and co-artistic director of LA/Glasgow based aerial theatre company, Paper Doll Militia and has been creating, performing, and coaching with the company since its inception in 2006.
Rain’s passion for aerial coaching brings her all over the world teaching specialty workshops, teacher trainings, and retreats (Greece, Mexico & Panama). When she’s not on the road, Rain offers private lessons out of her East LA home studio. Rain is Yoga Alliance certified and has extensive knowledge in various other movement forms that inform her distinct style, including a lifelong background in theatre and dance. Rain also works as a trainer and consultant for theatre and film, notable clients include top Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif for her role in Dhoom 3 and sports legend Serena Williams.
