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. It's the result of many years of play, experimentation and growth within my own aerial practice. From the creative, to the logical - I've used my very analytical brain to filter the best of what I've learnt, discovered and created over two decades into a shareable format - exercises that I have seen transform aerial movement style in myself, my students and in artists working under my direction.
Who is Aerial Alchemy for?
I made this programme for people who want to develop their own unique way of moving in the air. For the dancers and the non-dancers alike. After many conversations with fellow artists, students and teachers, I realised so many aerialists don't know where to start when it comes to creating and some even feel like they don't have permission to do aerial differently from the way they were taught.
Aerial Alchemy is for people who want to explore their discipline, not just learn it. I believe everyone is creative, AAAAND I also know how overwhelming a blank canvas can be. I made this resource as a guide for to help you unlock your creative potential.
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
Curious? Then you're in the right place!
Curiosity is the foundation of this journey, staying open to the shifting influences and possibilities of spin, gravity, grip, emotion, puzzles and more. Working with me, you will develop an intuition-led movement practice, learn to tune into your apparatus and establish a deeper connection with it. 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
Aerial Alchemy Options...
Guided Initiation - 1-1 Process
This is me offering to walk alongside you as you descend into the depths of your own creativity. If you want lots of guidance, feedback and assurance, this is the package for
you. In this programme I send send you Aerial Alchemy exercises, tailored to your
specific goals. You experiment with the exercise and send me videos to review. I then
send you feedback in either written or video format - your choice.
This can be done as a weekly or fortnightly cycle, whatever works for you.
I highly recommend this package for anyone who wants:
-
BIG artistic growth,
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to feel both challenged and encouraged to take artistic risk
-
accountability
Flying Solo - Self directed
- A pdf workbook with movement prompts designed to grow your capacity for improvisation and discover unique ways of moving in the air. The exercises are organised into my Aerial Alchemy framework which is formulated to provide a practical pathway to accessing the flow state. The workbook includes reflection to help you understand your preferences and tastes, to delve into your artistic choices and discover yourself in the air.
Accountabilibuddy - Weekly Email
- The same as Flying Solo but instead of getting all the prompts at once they arrive in a weekly email. This is for the people who don't want to overload their brain or who have a tendency to buy something and then never get around to it. One prompt a week acts as a gentle nudge to your commitment to your artistic development; a weekly reminder to play a little.
Act Creation and Concept Development Mentoring
-In this process I help you create an act from concept to completion. We 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
In an attempt to make this programme accessible to all, the prices vary based on the continent you are based in.
Book a free 15 minute consultation with me to chat about your goals and how I can help here:
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