Aerial in black and white

R's and my friend Wilhelm visited us at training some weeks ago to take more photos with his analogue cameras. He has a blog where he uploads his pictures along with information from the camera that can be found here.

So for the first time R and I tried to both climb the silks. I know that partner silks are possible and done by a lot of people, but we just gave it a go and climbed one silk each! So much fun to both be there at the same time!

When this photo was uploaded someone commented that it looked like we were playing some kind of vertical Twister and I couldn't agree more, but Twister i fun. I think much of the partner things I have done feel a little like Twister where two bodies have to share a small space and cooperate in the movement.

When I started out doing acro things with R it could sometimes feel a little awkward to move around like this but after a while at elast I got used to it and are now trusting R and myself a lot while doing bot aerial and acro yoga.

This photo captures the joy of acro yoga and partner acrobatics!

I think this is the best photo of me in the collection! It captures how it really feels when aerial is done the right way - like a weightless flying!

I like the pictures a lot and think they make both me and R look good, so I wanted to include this photo that shows how it looks in between the great photos where we resat and discuss what we can do differently. In circus there is a lot of trying, failing, resting and evaluation before reaching results!

The process - what does it give to a work of art to see the process behind?

Lately I have been thinking about the process behind all the circus work I have done. Usually people just see the finished product and not the process behind.

Yesterday our friend came to take some photos of me and E when we did our partner poi performance, so make a school project in media. I have had a glimpse of some photos, and when I see them they look awesome. But we are actually in a classroom in school, and I had borrow my friends poi since mine where broken and I also borrowed E's dress at this photo.

A photo from yesterday

When we had a master class in Visby during the medieval week, one word of advice we got was that "you are really good, but people donät understand how good you are". I think this is a sign that most people don't know about the long process of learning tricks, practising them, putting them together and the performing them. Compared to other art forms, less people know about what happens before and after that glimpse of circus that they see.

At the festival of contemporary circus in Umeå I saw a show by the partner acrobats Henrik Agger and Louise Bjurholm, where they presented Louise's master thesis by having a show that basically showed how they prepared, warmed up, and did a performance, and what they did after. To me, I really liked to see how they practised and prepared, and their work together. I had already seen their performance in Cirkus Cirkör's "Wear it like a crown" and I actually enjoyed it even more when I saw the work behind.

We have been trying to be more known at uni by practising in corridors during lunch time. To me, this has been almost more difficult than performing on stage, because I am not used to showing the process behind. I don't know how I feel about people watching me practice, which means that they will sometimes see me fail, drop balls, get angry, get happy, stick things for the first time, and so on. I don't know if I would like to show this side or not.

Since it is interesting to see the process, when is the best time to show it? I think I want to see the finished art product before I see the process. It is not fun to see the directors cur before you have seen the movie without it.

What do you think about seeing the process behind work that you see?

How do you feel about showing the process of your own work to others?