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Trapeze and aerial arts aren't something you just happen upon one day. Because of the inherent danger in aerial routines, trying them on a whim — like picking up a basketball or soccer ball — is nearly impossible. But that's basically how Weber discovered her profession — on a whim.
One of her sister's neighbors in Bloomington, Ind., where Weber was living at the time, had a trapeze rig in her backyard and allowed people to come by and practice as they pleased. “It was like a flying club,” Weber says.
The neighbor helped Weber learn basic aerial skills, and soon she became quite adept on the trapeze. It wasn't long before she was seeking out other opportunities to learn more advanced skills. While she was learning the trapeze, she was also cutting her teeth in the acting business, doing stage work as it came.
To hear Weber describe the feeling of performing an aerial routine, be it on the trapeze or with fabric — imagine enormous, diaphanous sheets that look a bit like rubber bands — makes one wish for such high-flying skills. It is almost a spiritual experience for her, combining graceful artistry with near superhuman athleticism and gravity-defying moves.
“I still find it so rapturous to be in the air,” Weber says. “I love being up in the air. It's the greatest thing in the world. She treats her art as a dancer would and works to communicate a feeling or an expression every time she's in the air.
She certainly picked the right art form at the right time. Thanks to Cirque du Soleil, aerialists are now a hot commodity.
In her years as an aerialist, Weber has graced the stage with some of the top entertainers in the country, including Madonna and Pink, for whom she choreographed aerial acts. Weber also toured with Cher during her Living Proof farewell tour and choreographed all of the aerial routines, a gig she landed after performing aerial silks at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. (Weber cites that experience as the scariest job she's done because of the cold.)
Cher wanted to incorporate an aerial routine into her show, and her representative got in touch with Weber after the Winter Olympics. “It was a complete surprise,” Weber says. “It was very peculiar. I thought, ‘I'm one of Cher's dancers. It's just so weird.'”
Weber has also worked for a variety of corporate clients including Mercedes Benz, Adidas and Microsoft. But all the while, she knew that she wanted to make a feature film.
She and her husband, Farr, made a couple of short films over the years, and about four years ago, they began to think about how to use aerials as a visual metaphor. During the Cher tour, Weber met Addie Yungmee, her Gymnast costar. Soon afterward, Yungmee, Weber and Farr began hatching a story structure for a feature involving aerials.
The result of that effort, The Gymnast, has had a warm welcome on the LGBT film festival circuit, which has surprised Weber. She had assumed that the film would be overlooked at LGBT festivals because, she says, female-oriented films tend to be underrepresented.
But audiences were transfixed by both the sexy, risqué aerial routines and the story itself. The film's success is satisfying enough to make Weber do back flips. “It's been a slog. Everyone said it was the wrong movie to make,” she says. “I'm totally humbled. I'm just thrilled. I'm so glad people are responding to the themes of the film.”
For more information on The Gymnast, visit www.thegymnastfilm.com.
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