The Aviary Teaches Students to Take Flight

As exercise methods go, Anne Ryan says that running on a treadmill just can't compare with swooping through the air on a trapeze.

 

"It really was the first exercise discipline where I felt rewarded while I was doing it, instead of afterward," she says. "When you're on a trapeze, it makes you feel like a superstar."

 

Ryan began training in aerial acrobatics in 2009 at the Detroit Flyhouse, a Detroit circus school. She and her friend Lia Lilley made regular trips from Ann Arbor to learn aerial arts including trapeze, aerial silk (acrobatics performed while hanging from a resilient piece of fabric), and corde lisse (performed while hanging from a rope). Although Ryan and Lilley loved the experience, the cost of lessons and gas money, plus the hassle of making regular drives to Detroit, began to add up. They started looking for a space to practice and hold classes closer to home - a challenge that wound up taking two and a half years.

 

"We were having a really hard time finding a building that met the specifications," Ryan says. "You have to have a really high ceiling and a support beam that you can put several thousand pounds of downward force on."

 

But they found what they were looking for last September in an office suite just south of Ann Arbor Municipal Airport. With office space in the front and ample, high-ceilinged warehouse space in the back, the location was perfect. Ryan, Lilley, and business partner Zoe Lindsay repainted and installed a shock-absorbing spring floor and acrobatics equipment on their own steam. The resulting space - the Ann Arbor Aviary - is now open to the public, after six months of renovation work.

 

"You know the old adage about good, fast, and cheap?" Ryan says. "We're trying to go for good and cheap. Fast, not so much."

 

First-time business owner Ryan says she and her partners have relied heavily on friends, family, and other connections for financial and legal advice in getting the Aviary up and running.

 

"We're just trying to be very careful and stay on top of all the small details," she says.

 

However, one of the bigger details – insurance – turned out to be relatively low-hassle. Contacts at the Flyhouse referred the Aviary partners to major circus insurer ISERA, and Ryan says the process of getting insured was a piece of cake.

 

"The paperwork lays everything out really clearly," she says. "It asks what you'll be teaching at your school, and it lists everything from fire to unicycling to juggling to flaming unicycle juggling."

 

Unfortunately, flaming unicycle juggling is out of the question because the Aviary isn't insured for fire acts, but Ryan and her partners are planning to offer a little bit of just about everything else. 

 

The newly-opened facility doesn't yet have a finalized class schedule, but Ryan expects the first schedule to go live on the Aviary's website on April 8, with classes beginning April 15. 

 

In addition to the aerial arts that are the Aviary's staple, classes will be offered in disciplines ranging from bellydancing and yoga to juggling, swing dancing, and hula hooping. Ryan and her partners have contracted an initial pool of about ten instructors to teach various sessions.

 

"We wanted to offer a lot of interesting conditioning classes that would help you train along with aerial," Ryan says. "You can do aerial every day, but not everyone can afford it. It's good to have a training program alongside of it to make progress."

 

She says that although we're used to seeing only trained professionals attempting some of the high-flying aerobics taught at the Aviary, those techniques are safe, rewarding, and doable no matter what your experience or fitness level.

 

"It sounds very intimidating," she says. "I was very intimidated when I first heard about it. But the first day you're there you're going to be able to do something, no matter what shape you're in."

Patrick Dunn is an Ann Arbor-based freelance writer and contributor to Metromode and Concentrate.