“HOME” | A Maui Aerial Arts Production Sponsored by Vertical Art Dance
“HOME: A LOVE LETTER”
“Join us for an aerial-dance production exploring the places and people we call home. Funny, touching and brimming with love and hope, everyone is bound to see themselves and their families in this unique performance. Using dance trapeze, hammock, lyra, contortion and hand balancing, our dancers will transport you to a place deeply familiar, yet utterly new.”
SHOW DATES:
Saturday May 13 at 7PM (evening)
Sunday May 14 at 2PM (matinee)
SHOW LOCATION:
Maui Pro-Arts
Azeka Plaze – Makai/Ocean Side
1280 South Kihei Road
Kihei, HI 96753
VERTICAL ART DANCE IS A PROUD SPONSOR OF “HOME: A love letter”
Maui Aerial Arts is long-time, loyal customer of Vertical Art Dance. We recently were able to visit Heather (owner/founder of Maui Aerial Arts) and her wonderful studio in Maui, Hawaii to chat more with her about this amazing production we are so glad to be a part of. Here is what Heather had to say:
H: “Vertical Art Dance is proud to sponsor your upcoming full length production of Home. Tell us a little bit about this event and what we can expect to see in it.”
Heather: “Well we're going to have 8 local performers doing...I think we have a total of 10 aerial acts plus some small vignettes between and the concept behind the show is HOME. It's a love letter to the spaces we call home, the people we call home and we're trying to just sort of show the emotions and the typical life changes that happen in a home. So we have things like relationships beginning and ending but we also have some really funny observant little routines about things like if you have insomnia…so we actually have an act where the whole act is just about insomnia and trying to go to sleep and she really captures it on the trapeze. So things and these emotions and these you know…life events that happen, um, inside of our homes…we’re just trying to portray that through aerial dance.”
H: “That’s such a fun concept for a show, I love that, it hits close to home!”
Heather: “It’s something that everyone can identify with. I really feel that the audience is going to see something of themselves in this show.”
H: “I love that. Why is this production special to you?”
Heather: “I first came up with the idea when we were all stuck at home, when everything closed down. When things close down on an island you really feel it…like the beaches shut down, we weren’t allowed to sit on the beach, you could only walk…I mean schools shut down. Suddenly my husband and I were both working from home. We couldn’t open the studio…I wasn’t even allowed to be in here. It was really an interesting time and that is when I first had that idea for the show. I thought we should have a show that’s about what everyone’s doing inside of their houses right now. Like we’re all in the same situation, we’re all feeling a little bit anxious, we’re all feeling a little bit unsure..and yet at the same time I was having all these wonderful experiences. My husband and I got to connect more, we cooked more, my daughter was home from school and I got to know her in a completely different way. So there were all of these positive things too…but by the end of the day I was like ‘oh my gosh, stop touching me! I need to be alone!’ ‘cause there was no alone time, at all. We ended up doing a show called “Touch” which I think we might re-release and it was an online show. We all explored the idea of touch. The idea of “Home” evolved throughout the pandemic and I’ve planned maybe four different iterations of this show from 2021-2022.We couldn’t get a theater because no one was putting on any shows. This iteration of the show I think is the best one. We were all feeling trapped at home, so it was a much darker show when I first started thinking about it and now it’s really become a happy show. There’s some happy moments and there’s some melancholy in it and there’s laughter and there’s love and there’s, you know, sadness as well but, overall, it’s a heartwarming show.”
H: “Can you share a little bit about the concept behind one of the acts?
Heather: “I can speak to my own performance, which is very personal for me. Almost every show I’ve done has had something very personal behind it that has motivated me to do the show. My piece for this show…the name of the song is “The Sun Will Set,” and the concept is going back to your childhood home and looking at it through adult eyes and sort of realizing you’re packing up your childhood when you return back to your new home…your adult home now. So that was the concept behind my piece. I’m going to do things like attach family photos to the trapeze all the way up to the top and I’m going to pull them down and pack them away. So we’re really trying to use the aerial apparatuses as props in addition to using them for their state purpose to dance on, but we’re going to use them in ways like you would use things in a home. Instead of the pictures being on the wall or on a table they’re going to be on a trapeze and I’m going to remove them from there.”
H: “And in a theater sense it becomes more of a prop that you are dancing with. That’s really cool! We are so excited to see this show! What are your plans for this production in the future? What other iterations might HOME become?”
Heather: “You know, I think one of the other really interesting things about this show is we’ve never done a performance in a space that had lower ceilings. The ceilings are 14 feet and we’re all used to working with 18 feet and up. So, we’ve kind of created the show for this space and it FEELS more like a home, because it’s smaller. Like most homes don’t have 20 foot ceilings. It feels very intimate and the theater itself is very small, very cozy. It’s a beautiful theater and it’s a great resource for the community. So we’re also very excited to see what we can do in a space like that. There are NO theaters in up-country Maui that have high ceilings. We’re trying to find a way to get our art form out into the community that fits into the spaces that already exist in the community. It’s been really fun for me and for some of the other trapeze artists to think ‘what can I do if the trapeze is only 2 feet off of the ground?’ We’ve gotten really creative. We’ve definitely done things that we never would have done working with the trapeze at a higher level. We’re all doing things differently than we would in a space with higher ceilings.”
H: “Space dictates the acts and vice versa.”
Heather: “Yes, ultimately what I would love to do is have the show continue to evolve and maybe take it to other islands. Because of not needing super high ceilings and being able to do it in a smaller space I do feel like it opens up the opportunity to put the show in other spaces.”
H: “How do you hope this show inspires your students and your instructors or how has it already inspired them?”
Heather: “It has inspired the instructors so much because we are really challenging each other to work in a completely different space and work on a smaller stage. I think it’s also challenging us…because when you work in a corporate setting or performance you only focus on technique or the big tricks, what is really going to wow the audience…and this we really got to go more deeply inside of ourselves and connect with the emotional work within the piece. We’ve had some great brainstorming sessions as a cast and just sort of asked each other ‘Who is your character in this and what do you want the audience to feel? What do you feel when you’re doing this? How can we portray that emotion?’ We’ve gotten a more creative outlet. Corporate work can be pretty sterile, but it does pay some bills. So it’s exciting to do that and I’m excited for our students to see it because we try to get them to tap into themselves when they do showcases and I think it’s really meaningful for them to see their teachers kind of go out on a creative limb and really just put themselves out there.”
H: “What do you think is the importance of theater and performing arts in this world, especially for kids?”
Heather: “It is life changing, like I don’t even say this being sarcastic or ironic…I think aerial arts and circus dance, performance art…can save the world. I’ve traveled all over the world doing social circus and I’ve taught kids as young as 3 to my oldest student being 74. Just seeing people discover their bodies, discover their strengths…have an outlet that is creative and physical and builds community…it changes people. It really changes people. I feel that everytime I come into the studio and I see classes happening. People are happy and they are happy to be here. It makes them feel good. So many people make life-long friends through aerial arts and I just want to do anything I can to keep promoting that.”
H: “How important is it to have sponsors for this kind of production?”
Heather: “Oh my God, it’s so important. This studio…I didn’t even take a loan for. I saved up for years to open this space and I really wanted to put on shows and we just don’t really have the budget. We barely have the budget to paint the walls when we need to. So, I was like you know what we’re just gonna do it. We’re gonna book the theater and we’re gonna find a way to do it and I know sponsors will come. In the back of my head I was like ‘please let Summer still want to be a sponsor, please! She sponsored our last show.’ I sent that email to her and was like ‘we’re gonna hear back from her I just know it.’ Honestly, if she hadn’t sponsored our first show I don’t know if we would have done another one because it’s not easy and all of us work other jobs. I’m also a professor and I teach online for the University of Denver. None of this is easy. None of this is a money-maker. We don’t do it for that reason, we do it (run an aerial arts business) because we really feel passionate about it and I really feel passionate about the show. It felt important to do because this is something people will identify with and this is a great way to spend an afternoon (with your Mom on Mother’s Day!).”
H: “Any other thoughts you want to add?”
Heather: “I’m so grateful for Summer and I’m grateful for Vertical Art Dance and just that they are so supportive of a small business. We’re not a huge business and it means so much to have other businesses that are really well recognized and have great reputations supporting us.”
H: “Thank you, Heather! We appreciate you!
S: “We can’t do what we do without you. So we’re really grateful to you also.”