Contrary to how effortless bungee-assisted dance looks in the air, its development has been neither effortless nor speedy. The process all began when Wendy and Jamie conceived the idea to better combine their two specialist areas of performing in the air and dancing on the ground. With Wendy’s expertise in contemporary dance and Jamie’s inventive aerial technical know-how, they began the painstaki
ng process of trial and error to produce what we see today as bungee-assisted dance. Their ultimate goal was to create a performance technique which had the ability to play with the audience’s perception, subtly urging them to see the form of a suspended body, rather than a dancer dangling from a rope- heightening the aesthetic presence of dance to a level which would allow their audience to fully immerse in the performance, the story, and the beauty of a form unhindered by the laws of gravity. Multiple prototypes of harnesses were created and discarded, as this seemed to be the first hurdle, to allow Wendy enough range of movement to truly be able to dance while attached to apparatus. Furthermore, to allow the flight of a performer a whole new technical process was designed; connecting a climber to the performer, to ballast and/or haul them into the air as and when the choreography designated. As time went by they created a movement vocabulary and training regime, which conditioned the body in the areas most beneficial to perform this type of dance. No different from Cunningham, Graham or Limon, bungee-assisted dance is a technique all of its own, and has a specific set of exercises which prepares the body for its application. Our performers, or “twirlies” as they are known as in-house, are professional dancers who we then train with this unique skill set. You may have already seen bungee-assisted dance at theatres near you. From the West Yorkshire Playhouse in a knock out production of Monkey, to major UK festivals such as Glastonbury, Greenwich and Docklands International Festival and Stockton International Riverside Festival (SIRF) Wired have had no shortage of platforms to showcase their work- or for that matter, teach it to hundreds of enthusiastic dancers, many who travel from as far afield as the US. Since Wired hit the ground running with their technique there has been much interest and a huge following with other companies then also eager to explore the technique. Wired are very proud to have inspired companies such as Motionhouse, Upswing Aerial and Stan Wont Dance to begin playing. While aerial dance, as a genre, is largely undefined, Wired are steadily working to raise the profile of this under represented technique, through international conferences, courses offered at their centre for aerial excellence “The Higher Space”, and their high profile tours and bespoke performances around the globe. Bungee-assisted dance is truly a labour of love, and it is that passion emanating from their work which has critics, performers and audiences alike, captivated the world over.
