NYC Aerial Dance Festival 2026 Set For May

Fly-by-Night Dance Theater has announced the NYC Aerial Dance Festival 2026 - presenting Aerial Dance as Concert Dance in works that push the boundaries of both. Featured artists each bring their unique expressive approach to a variety of aerial apparatus including Silks, Dance Trapeze, Corde Lisse, Lyra and Mini Lyra, Ropes, Multicorde, Open Sling, and Span Set. The performances are on Friday, May 8 @ 7 PM & 9 PM.

Featured choreographers include Cherie Carson of UpSwing Aerial Dance Company, Diane Tomasi, Julie Ludwick of Fly-by-Night Dance Theater, Karen Potter, Megan Cattau, Megan Dewees, Nicki Miller and Benny Oyzon of Sticks & Stone, Wendy Chu, and Wendy Louie and Maia Ramnath, with additional performances by Asha Flasha, Cecilia Fontanesi, Helium Valentine, and KC Hyland.

Moonlit Memories

Moonlit Memories features the choreography of Cherie Carson with dancers KC Hyland and Helium Valentine of UpSwing Aerial Dance Company in a stunning aerial performance with mini hoop and open sling. Inspired by the color blue, this piece journeys through solitude, rebellion, and resilience, revealing strength in vulnerability. The two women celebrate the complexity of the human spirit through breathtaking movement and ethereal beauty with power and authenticity.

Angels of the Get Through

Angels of the Get Through is an Aerial Straps work created by Diane Tomasi after the passing of queer poet laureate Andrea Gibson in the summer of 2025. Gibson's poetry invites the listener to feel, to be, and to love, especially when life is hard and the odds are stacked against all that makes life worth living. Amid rising hatred toward trans, queer, and migrant communities, Tomasi found solace in Andrea's words—and created the work as both dedication and invitation: to feel deeply, love fiercely, and remember your beauty.

LIB-er-tee

Julie Ludwick's latest collaboration, LIB-er-tee, featuring dancers Asha Flasha, Cecilia Fontanesi, and Maia Ramnath, will premiere in the festival. The work is a bold fusion of Aerial, Street, and Contemporary dance that pays homage to Lady Liberty, exploring what she stands for in America's past, present, and uncertain future. The work transforms the vertical stage through video projection, single-point low trapeze, and floor-to-ceiling span sets.

Per Aquas Antiquas Volans

Karen Potter's new aerial duet, Per Aquas Antiquas Volans, is performed on silks and integrates floor choreography with aerial elements. Inspired by images of carved wooden sculptures on the prow of sailing ships popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, the dance features the female performer as the figurehead on the prow of a sailing ship soaring through ancient waters supported by the male performer.

And so we stirred the embers

In And so we stirred the embers, Megan Cattau offers a visceral meditation on dance trapeze, exploring the quiet agency we carry in tumultuous times. Choreographed in collaboration with composer Ameen Mokdad, who created the haunting soundscape in Mosul, Iraq during ISIS occupation, the work connects us to our internal landscapes and instinctual bodies—intuitive, genuine, unapologetic. Weaving intimate narrative with textured motion, it offers resilience through presence, grounded in felt experience amid uncertainty.

Take It Off

Megan Dewees' Take It Off is an intimate exploration of gender queerness, dysphoria, and transformation. Drawing from journal entries, imagery, and paintings created before and during recovery from FTM (female to male) top surgery, the work maps the internal terrain of this journey via trapeze dance. This visceral piece stands powerfully on its own and marks the beginning of a full-length ensemble work that will gather multiple queer performing artists to share their stories of embodiment and self-discovery.

Feedback Loop

Feedback Loop, choreographed by Nicki Miller and Benny Oyzon, was originally created and performed just seven weeks after Benny's 2025 open heart surgery while he was still recovering. With attention to physical delicacy and mutual care, the dancers use harness, counterweight, and aerial rope to embody the layered dynamics of partnership and change. This will be the NYC premiere of the duo's first new aerial counterweight work since their full-length show Sticks & Stones in 2022.

Dragon

In her latest 2026 premiere, Dragon, Wendy Chu pushes the boundaries of contemporary Lyra performance by blending Western technique and Eastern aesthetics. Contemplating the duality of the human experience versus the ethereal power of the mythical creature, Chu integrates silk ribbons to mirror the fluid strokes of Chinese brushwork, reimagining them as a calligraphic dragon taking flight.

Doppelgänger