Tess Munro Pedreros - Circus Artist
Aerial Alchemy - Demystifying the flowstate...
Aerial Alchemy is a framework I have developed to help you explore your originality in the air. The result of many years of play, experimentation and growth within my own aerial practice, this is my creative process, broken down into a logical format. I've used my very analytical brain to filter the best of what I've learnt, discovered and created over two decades into exercises that I have seen transform aerial movement style in myself, my students and in artists working with me. This is me offering to walk alongside you as you descend into the depths of your own creativity. I'm here to help guide, challenge and encourage you in discovering your creative potential.
Who is Aerial Alchemy for?
Aerial Alchemy is for people who want to explore their discipline, not just learn and repeat it.
Through years of conversations with fellow artists, students and teachers, I realised how many aerialists didn't know where to start when it came to creating for themselves. Some felt like they wanted to move differently but weren't sure how to nurture their own style, and others felt they didn't have permission to experiment with aerial at all. I'm here to tell you that there are so many ways to "do" aerial, and more importantly there are wonderful ways that are uniquely YOU. My aim is to help those ways flourish in you.
I believe everyone is creative, AAAAND I also know how overwhelming a blank canvas can be.
If you:
- want to create your own tricks/ sequences
- wonder what to do with your hands in the air
- want to find a flow-state in your practice
- have a dance/theatre background and want a creative approach to aerial
- don't have a dance/theatre background but want to explore this side of aerial
- feel stuck in a rut with your practice
- want a creative aerial practice but don't have the mental energy to come up with ideas to explore
- find it easy to go to the studio and do conditioning but the idea of improv scares you
- already love improvising and want to do MOAR!!!
Then Aerial Alchemy is for YOU!
What previous participants were looking for:
"I feel like when I approach an apparatus, everything I know just falls out of my head and I can't think of anything to do, so learning to get better at this was certainly a goal... I also wanted to find a way to step out of just doing lots of poses, with some kind of cursory transition in between." - Aerial Alchemy Online Participant
"I want to DANCE with the trapeze, and have it feel like a partnership, rather than something that I climb on. I also want to tell stories and experiment with different ways to approach performance and trapeze - I can't do all the fancy stuff that some people can, so finding ways to push boundaries of myself, my apparatus, and what makes a good performance are all important things in my practice." - Aerial Alchemy Online Participant
How it works...
When you sign up you will have a worksheet and a call with me to help understand your personal goals. You'll choose either a weekly or fortnightly cycle, whatever works for you. Cancel or change cycle duration at anytime.
Each cycle looks like this:
I send you an Aerial Alchemy exercise, tailored to your specific aims, along with questions to help you reflect on your process.
You experiment with the exercise and send me videos to review, along with your reflections, (these help me provide more helpful feedback).
I send you feedback in either written or video format, as you prefer.
Second round of experimentation and feedback.
New cycle begins!
Pricing:
In an attempt to increase accessibility, pricing currently varies based on VERY general regions where I have lived and worked. If your area is not listed, or you would like to suggest a price for a more specific area or country, please email me to figure out a price with you!
Pricing is per cycle. One cycle includes one prompt and two exchanges of video/ feedback.
New Zealand - $70
Australia - $75
Mexico, Central and South America - equivalent of Pesos Chilenos - $38'000
USA and Canada - $80
Europe - €45
United Kingdom - £40
Act Creation and Concept Development
For artists who want to make an act that they treasure, something they can revel and delight in. I can help you create an act from concept to completion. We'll create a timeframe to suit your needs with a mixture of worksheets for developing your ideas (or sparking an idea in the first place), 1-1 calls and video review/feedback.
"Tess' feedback was so helpful in terms of the stagecraft - holding a position a little longer, changing the way I held my head, or finding ways to bring the audience into the story more. I genuinely think that her coaching made my routine into something special. I enjoyed the performance so much, because she had helped me to find and fill the character. " - Act Development Mentee
Personalised pricing based on timeline/quantity of video review/feedback sessions.
Curious? Then you're in the right place!
Curiosity is the foundation of this journey, staying open to the potential in both your apparatus and yourself, along with the shifting influences of gravity, grip, spin, emotion, puzzles and more. Working with me, you will learn to tune into your apparatus, establish a deeper connection with it and develop an intuition-led movement practice. Aerial Alchemy is a tool for discovering your own movement potential, shaking off the confines of classic lines and getting weird and wonderful.
"I was feeling really stuck in my training ... I wanted to move away from just copying other people's sequences, moves and routines off instagram, and find out what MY trapeze looked like and could be... Tess's prompts really do encourage me to think about the apparatus differently, and to try things that I wouldn't automatically consider"
- Aerial Alchemy Online Participant" - Aerial Alchemy Online Participant
Book a free 15 minute consultation with me to chat about your goals and how I can help here:
(or email me if the available times don't suit you!)
Tess-timonials
" Tess is such a genuinely kind and thoughtful tutor, her prompts are really creative and she gently helps you push through barriers and develop ideas in your own way, but with such a breadth of dramatic, performance and aerial knowledge. I find her wonderfully approachable, and know that no matter how difficult I find something, she will find a way to unlock an answer for me." - Aerial Alchemy Online Participant
"Improv has become a lot less scary - I still find it challenging, but the prompts are fun, beautifully explained, and the feedback is super constructive and really helpful - I feel like I always find something new, even when it's difficult, and when I feel like I'm stuck, or don't really know how to do it right, Tess will suggest a couple of things to consider, and one of them will always resonate!" - Aerial Alchemy Online Participant
""Thank you SO much to the utterly inspirational Tess for this bewitching Aerial Alchemy... We explored movement modes and qualities, and had the opportunity to develop our personal relationship with our preferred aerial apparatus through structured exercises, where the rules were made to be broken - finding what works for us (and sometimes, what doesn't!)... It was hard work, physically and mentally, but such a nice counterpoint to a traditional lesson - having permission to explore movement and shapes and how they feel in our bodies, rather than trying to hit a particular pose or trick, and seeking out new possibilities, rather than following a well trodden path from one pose to the next. And being given the tools to do more of that in our own time". - Phoenix, Aerial Alchemy workshop participant
I now have a stack load of exercises I can use in my own practice to uncover new pathways, and to bring new quality of movement to shapes and sequences that I know well. More of this sort of thing, please!" - Aerial Alchemy Workshop Participant
"I loved playing and learning what feels nice to my body's capabilities without the anxiety of how it looks or how it should look. I'll use Tess' creative toolkit whenever I'm stuck for a transition in a routine, needing some interesting shapes, emotions or just want to have fun flowing." - Clare, Aerial Alchemy workshop participant