Villains — you either love them or you hate them. Morally speaking, you probably shouldn’t be their biggest fans, but if they can put on a good show, who can blame you? And, let me tell you, they’re going to put on a good show this weekend at High Expectations Aerial Arts this weekend. We’re talking aerial silks, lyra, contortionists, trapeze — they’re going do it all.
The villains, some of whom you’ll recognize like Freddy Krueger and the Red Queen, will appear in two performances: a family-friendly student show and a PG-13 evening cabaret. All of it will be original choreography created just for the show. “The really cool thing about aerial is not only is there floor work that some of our performers do, but then they have that vertical plane they can work in as well,” says Sarah Bolton, owner of High Expectations. “So they’re able to go up and do dramatic drops, and it just adds a whole other element of drama and sort of intensity to any performance. So that’s a lot of fun to play with.”
This year will be the first year High Expectations does a cabaret in addition to their typical student showcase, which includes students of all ages. “The cabaret was an audition-only show,” Bolton says. “Our long-term goal is to present these types of cabaret performances several times a years, maybe even taking them to different locations. So it’s just an effort to challenge our advanced performers. In the future, we would love to include hoopers or dancers or acrobatics or pole dancers. This is sort of our test run, but we’re hoping for it to be very much a community thing in the future.”
Ultimately, for Bolton, being able to share her love of aerial arts — whether that’s through classes or performances like these — is especially rewarding. “[Aerial is] so empowering. Especially for women — a lot of our students are women. They’re all so strong and so powerful. … I joke that we all ran away and joined the circus, but, really, that’s kind of what happened. It’s just that element of fun and relief from a doldrums of being an adult — aerial’s really great for that, too. So the shows are fun for that too because people get to see us having fun and us creating a character and the whole thing is just about having a blast.”
Already, tickets for both of Saturdays shows are selling fast, so be sure to secure yours as soon as possible at highexpectationsaerialarts.com. Tickets for the cabaret performance include a Halloween-themed mocktail.
Masters of Mayhem: Student Show, High Expectations Aerial Arts, Saturday, October 28, 5 p.m., $9/kids, $15/adults.
Masters of Mayhem: Evening Cabaret, Saturday, October 28, 8:30 p.m., $25/in advance, $30/at the door.