We were lucky to catch up with Adele Carlsen recently and have shared our conversation below.
Adele, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you have any thoughts about how to create a more inclusive workplace?
The sport and art of synchronized swimming, now known in the Olympic Games as artsitic swimming, has been a predominately white girl sport for years.
First of all, most people get into synchronized swimming because they are good swimmers. Swimming has been a predominately white person sport for many reasons in the US, such as historically segregated areas having no or limited access to swimming pools, being too expensive to access swimming pools especially for larger families that need more than one adult per child or need to pay for swimming lessons, having no/extremely few Olympic medalists as role models in the sport because ethnic minority groups were not learning to swim at the very start of that process. Even things such as swimming caps not being made suitable for afro hair, or ridicoulous lies being spread about how the body mass of differnet groups meant they couldnt float as easily. When your parent can’t swim it also makes it less likely that you then wont take your child swimming as so it goes on.
Swimming is gradually opening up to everyone. More POC are qualifying for the Olympics in aquatics and starting to win medals. Children will see that and see themselves being represented hopefully asking their parents to take them down the pool to have a go. Swimming pools and lessons are being made accessible. Nike have launched a great swim initiative with Le Bron James to encourage this. POC are being used in swimwear campaigns. The more young people that take up swimming, the more will then filter off into other aquatic disciplines such as artisic swimming.
Beyonce produced a music video a few years ago, and 90% synchronized swimmers were requested to be a POC. Production had to fly in the Jamaican national team, many who were under the age of 18, for the shoot as there just weren’t the numbers in the US. It would ahve been the easy option to just use ‘white girls’ but thankfully Beyonce knew what she wanted and who she wanted represented. Beyonce made a huge impact showing many young girls, who were not of caucasian descent, that they to could be a dancer in water.
When it comes to boys and men participating, the sport again has been marketed for ‘women only’ with it being introduced in the LA Olympics in 1984 to help boost the number of female participants. The media would make fun of the sport, by treating it as if it was the same as the old Hollywood MGM musicals, with ladies floating around rather than appreciating it for what it has evolved to which was one of the most physically demading sports in the world. Imagine running for three minutes, holding your breath for 2/3rd of that, high intensity movements throughout the run and trying to stay synchronized and hit the same body positions as seven other people. Of course the media, being a male dominated arena, just like sport was not going to make that easy for a woman’s only sport at the time so it was made a laughing stock and soemthing that wasn’t that athletic, again deterring many boys, and those that were intrigued would be made fun of at school so quit. Thankfully times are changing and men have been able to compete at the world championship level since 2015 in mixed pairs and now, since 2024, two men per country are eligible to compete in the team event if they qualify via their nation’s selection criteria. Boys are seeing these athletic men particpate and wanting to try the sport. Afterall, what boy doesnt enjoy doing handstands, somersaulting in the pool and going underwater. Also, swimming laps may not be everyone’s choice but to work as a team together, making up routines can help introduce more people to the water and is still a way of teaching water safety to prevent drownings.
In my company Aquabatix, a company for professional synchronized swimmers to perform water entertainment in live events and parties globally and also appear in screen productions, we have been very aware of this for a while. Our synchronized swimmer sare highly skilled athletes with some Olympians on our books too. We can’t just magic up highly skilled synchronized swimmers, it takes years of training. So we thought what else can we do to help be a part of the solution moving forwards.
We decided to set up an artisic swimming online course for swimming instructors. An affordable and accessible way to learn how to teach the basics of the sport in their lessons, be in as a contract activity, a one off lesson, or even as a course. The skills arent not as hard as what they look on the Olympics. Remeber this is the basics, we all have to start somewhere. The skills align closely with those of swimming and other aquatic sports such as water polo and diving. Eggbeater is the most energy efficient wat of treading water, which is a life saving skill. Sculling, something synchronized swimmers excel at, is part of every swimming stroke. We have body balance down to a T and is vital in learning to float, which is the most importnat skill to have in water. Plus learning basic moves, strokes that can be swam in synchronization with tohers as a bit of fun, team work and of course underwater skills which are votal again to saving lives in water.
We wanted to make sure everyone could be represented in what we do. We used one of our top male synchronized swimmers in the videos which teachers will watch as part of the course. Plus, as well as using males in the pictures, we also used POC in the imagery, showing even those who have to cover up in water duet to their religion, with brands such as Adidas, Nike and Speedo now introducing suitable swimwear for those needs, can be involved.
We offered the course for free to B.O.S.S., a black owned swim school who train up POC to qualify so more swimming instructors could start teaching the skills. One day we hope to see a handful of these kids as our next generation of aquatic performers and even in the Olympic Games one day.
At Aquabatix, we are passionate that everyone gets gets the chance to learn the basic skills of the sport of artistic swimming, that they can see themselves represented in the sport and then who knows where that could take them. We endeavour to include and push forward where we can, POC in our teams and castings, even if it is more expensive because they are not from the area. It is important that we keep pushing for equal representation in aquatics.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I was a synchronized swimming who competed for Great Britain at world championship and European level. I then went into coaching the sport and worked with the British team for the London 2012 Olympics. During this, my business partner and I realised that our sport was one of the few that could be a form of entertainment as well. Many people are stunned by what we do when they see it live, as most have never seen it before aside on the TV.
With the rise in rooftop pools, events, brand awareness and now social media, the more visually captivating you are in what you do is so important.
We set up Aquabatix 20 years ago to perform at pool parties and corporate events mainly. We soom realised we could help brands get seen on the front page of national papers with the captivating images of our performances, be the talking point of a private party in the south of France or even work in productions not only as synchronized swimmers, but also as body doubles or actors with amazing underwater skills. We were so successful with work in the UK, Europe and Asia, including our own residential underwater show in the UAE, we decided to launch in the US, and more so in Hollywood, the home of the Holllywood mermaid Esther Williams. Here there is a huge call for Hollywood vintage style performances but we do fuse it together with the Olympic sport including acrobatic thorws out of the water, fast moving leg choreography and inspiring formation changes. With the LA28 Olympics coming up fast, we hope there will be a huge demand for what we do, to have a taste of the Olympics at your event to entertain the guests.
One of the best jobs so far was to work with Adele on her music video I Drink Wine. The video, directed by the talented Joe Talbot, was so creative and Adele was so friedly and lovely to work with.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
My business partner Katie Fried and I met the very first day we started synchronized swimming, at the age of eight.
We were then put together as duet partners and we won our first national age group title at the age of 11. We went on to win the national senior title, plus many team titles and compete for our county together.
We set up a business in what we love, learning as we went. We already knew how to work successfully together, how to live with eachother for long periods , under huge amounts of pressure to when it comes to competiing. To be honest that made it easy when it came to working together for a business. We had already learnt the hardest part which is working together as a team, using the best skills of eachother and knowing how to react with eachother when it isnt going to so well.
We have gone on to win awards together with the company. Who would ahve thought all those years ago when we jumped in the pool at the age of eight for our first session that we would end up running an award winning global business together.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
We were the first global and really still the only one today, that works regulary in the US, Asia, Middle East and Europe.
I think it was several things.
Firstly we were established in the sport of synchronized swimming so we have a good reputation within the sport. In the past, the entertainment side has been used to diss the sport so there was some bad feeling there understanably between Olympic level athletes and show performing as they felt it was not helping ths sport progress. However the entertainm,ent side can take the sport to a whole new audience which is vital but it must be done to the highest level too. Anyone can float around, but if it isnt of an elite qaulity, even if the moves are more simple than an Olympic routine, then it will still be looked at as a joke. I like to think with our professionalism and approach we have made show synchro a lot more reputable. Plus it is a form of income for those who have spent years mastering the skill, and they can relax and enjoy performing too.
We had contacts all over the world in what we do and at the highest level. The most important part of our business is our performers and show managers. They are the heart beat. We know exactly how they work and fuction, whatever country you live in, we are basically the same the world over in what we do. We make sure they are treated as professionals, given the respect they deserve and like to think of us as one big global family.
The way we turned what we do into a professional company for entertainment. We wanted to make sure the client could trust us, and that we would deliver their brief and go above and beyond in the most professional way,
Our client list and testimonials are outstanding. Brands such as Chanel, Rolls Royce, Disney, Omega, Google, Ralph Lauren and I could go on. Brands come to us because they know we will deliver to the highest expectation. Our work ethic is of athletes, we work hard for the best performance for our clients, as that is important to us.
We have been going for twenty years and still growing globally. I think that is what goves us the best reputation.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.aquabatixusa.com
- Instagram: @aquabatixusa
Image Credits
Image of Adele Carlsen Helmie Stil