Beyond Limits Aerial Dance to thrill audience at TEDxSalem

Grav­i­ty adds a sense of won­der and thrill to watch­ing dancers who leave the safe­ty of the ground to twirl from rings and oth­er geo­met­ric shapes over­head.

That’s the expe­ri­ence that Beyond Lim­its Aer­i­al Dance will bring to TEDxSalem Jan. 4. It’s rem­i­nis­cent of the soar­ing wild gamut of emo­tions you feel on a roller coast­er with­out the dis­joint­ed move­ments of a rick­ety track.

Jes­si Fouts and EJ Reinagel are the artis­tic direc­tors behind the Salem dance com­pa­ny Beyond Lim­its. They hail from mul­ti­ple locales from around the coun­try includ­ing New York, Cal­i­for­nia and Mis­souri.

To cre­ate the com­pa­ny, the cou­ple take pro­fes­sion­al dancers, often hand­picked, and put them in the air. Jes­si dances in some of the pieces, too.

They chore­o­graph pieces that help dancers move through prob­lems and issues they are fac­ing per­son­al­ly. Their work incor­po­rates all of that into the dance so not only is the audi­ence get­ting some­thing beau­ti­ful to watch, but the actors are releas­ing their scope of emo­tions as well in each aer­i­al twirl, swoop and dive.

Sec­ond, they write all the pieces with a spe­cif­ic theme or an event they would like to explore fur­ther. Their dances are expres­sions of time­less emo­tions sig­nif­i­cant to all peo­ple; love, joy, pain, loss.

“Every­one has expe­ri­enced feel­ings like loss on some lev­el,” says EJ, who is an artis­tic direc­tor of Beyond Lim­its.

While they both chore­o­graph the dancers’ move­ments, EJ is in charge of the appa­ra­tus­es that will help cre­ate the emo­tion­al peaks and val­leys the audi­ence sees. Jes­si brings a back­ground in dance with a Bach­e­lor of Fine Arts in dance per­for­mance.

She’s the one who stum­bled on to this art when she was fin­ish­ing school. Some­one need­ed aer­i­al dancers, she said, and she thought she would give it a try.

When they don’t have their heads in the clouds, Jes­si is an occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­py assis­tant and EJ teach­es at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty. They dream of offer­ing class­es and pro­vid­ing a space to explore envi­ron­men­tal and social issues through mul­ti­me­dia plat­forms.

Even though this isn’t their bread and but­ter just yet, they hope it will be one day. EJ believes it is impor­tant for them to have a place to cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ty that can give back, a place where they can empow­er peo­ple to be their best selves.

You can see their lat­est work Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 4 at TEDx Salem. Don’t miss this ride.

For more infor­ma­tion about Beyond Lim­its go to https://www.beyondlimitsaerialdance.com/

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TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com