We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sarah Romanowsky a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sarah, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I grew up training as a dancer and continued that education into college. After receiving my BA in Dance, I started performing professionally for about a year before discovering a studio where I could learn aerial arts. Many people become aerialists without backgrounds in dance or gymnastics, but for me, I found having a dance background to be extremely useful. I already knew how to learn with my body, how to memorize physical movements, and how to connect artistry and flow with my choreography in the air. The main physical challenge was developing the upper body strength needed for proper inverts, pull-ups, and no-leg climbs. There were certain skills I found extremely difficult, but bigger than the physical obstacles, I was also afraid of being more than 10 feet high in the air. I was honestly never a thrill-seeker, never into sports, and rarely did anything physically risky. It took time and patience to get over the mental hurdle of trusting myself in the air, especially as I did jobs that were higher and higher. Oddly enough, I met a lot of people on my pathway of aerial education who were naturally gifted in these areas, and yet, didn’t stick with it. Or, if they did stick with it, they never found a calling or passion for teaching and sharing the craft. For me, having to take the extra time to “figure it out” for myself led me to feeling immense passion for the art and I believe gave me the skills to effectively share it with others.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As an aerial artist, my main disciplines are silks, hammock, hoop, rope and bungee trapeze as well as other specialty apparatuses depending on the event or show I’m performing in. There are a couple of shows in Las Vegas I perform in regularly that are open to the public, however, much of the work I do is for special events. The cities I’ve worked in the most are Las Vegas, San Diego, Las Vegas and New York City, but I also travel internationally both for performing and teaching. I don’t teach any ongoing group classes open to the public, however, I travel and teach workshops as well private lessons in person or virtually. I love choreographing for various shows, events and projects as well as coaching students and fellow aerialists in their own artistic endeavors. I also do aerial consulting both for production companies and individuals looking for more guidance and direction in their careers.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I have two experiences that tested my resilience with my career that I know are very relatable, but they happened to coincide, which was perhaps what made the experience unique. In early March of 2020, I had just finished a 6-month contract with a new Cirque du Soleil touring show and was coming back to Las Vegas. I was sad about my temporary contract ending, but was hopeful coming back to Las Vegas as I had a lot of freelance work lined up as well promotional work with Cirque du Soleil. Suddenly, job after job that I had booked started canceling. Of course I was aware of what was being said on the news about a potential pandemic, but I certainly didn’t anticipate the severity of the situation. I even flew to the Bay Area for a job which was subsequently cancelled, but while there, I started feeling incredibly exhausted and sick. In an abundance of caution, I took a pregnancy test, and the same weekend that the country announced a lockdown, I found out that I was pregnant. Instead of flying home as planned, I drove back to Vegas from San Francisco and we began isolating. We took the warnings of the CDC seriously, however, we were extra cautious because of my pregnancy as there were just too many unknowns. It was very much a wanted pregnancy, but I was anxious as I had no idea how my body would respond and whether I could return to the career I loved so much. I also had no idea if or when live entertainment would come back. I had a small aerial rig in the backyard that a friend kindly lent me, so I did my best to stay active within reason, but naturally I had to lessen my aerial training as the pregnancy progressed. The only other exercise I was inspired to do while staying relatively isolated, was to hike. I did trail after trail until it just got to be too much. In retrospect, I am so grateful for the timing of it all. I never had to miss a day of performing due to pregnancy because while I took a break from the stage, so did everyone else. Six weeks after a C-section, I slowly started training again, but I couldn’t even get upside-down. I suddenly remembered what it was like to be a beginner again, but even worse. I kept at it, though. After about 6 months, vaccines were becoming more widely available and the world was opening back up again. By then, I had built my body back up to the point that I didn’t feel perfect, but I felt ready to start performing safely again. Pregnancy in such a physical career intersecting with the unknowns of the pandemic and subsequent vulnerability of the live entertainment world made for a lot of doubt during that time. On top of it all was also the experience of being a 1st time parent and my husband and I figuring so much out on our own as we had no family nearby to help. Thankfully, I was able to return to my former strength and ability while the entertainment world returned as well. In the last few years, life has gotten quite busy again and my husband (who’s also in entertainment) has been touring, which has left me to balance a lot of time on my own with our daughter while navigating schedules and career alongside her needs. Through creativity and flexibility, we’ve managed to find some semblance of balance. It’s not perfect, but is an ever-evolving process.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Back in 2011, I filmed an aerial silks act of mine and uploaded it to YouTube so I could submit it for potential jobs in Los Angeles. After uploading it, I never really gave it much thought, other than occasionally using the link for submissions. Then, two years later, I was visiting an aerial studio in Oakland for the first time and a woman named Tracy came up to me and asked, “are you Sarah Romanowsky?” Surprised, I said, “yes, do we know each other?” and she responded with, “yes, we all know you — we’ve seen you on YouTube!” Confused, I looked at my YouTube page, and that video I’d forgotten about had over 200K views. That was when I realized people were actually paying attention to aerial arts online. It was also around this time that Instagram transitioned from a photos-only platform to also including videos. So, I started posting aerial videos on Instagram and was able to easily build a following before I even knew what “building a following” meant. In the ensuing years, of course more and more people were learning the craft and also posting online, so that initial swell of new followers slowed down, but still continued to build. I would say that my following on social media has not helped me as much in the performance world (although it certainly hasn’t hurt), but primarily, it has made it very easy for me to travel and book workshops teaching aerial arts. What initially started out as mostly an accident, has turned into a blessing that has allowed me to connect with students all over the world. I’ve now taught in over 100 studios, in 13 different countries and continue to meet new artists and students globally, whether in person or virtually. I don’t have much advice for people trying to build their own following now, since I believe a lot of my success was pure luck and timing, but I will say that I try to stay consistent in my content. I’m not always consistent in how often I post, but I try to keep all of my posts related to aerial arts. I also recommend treating social media as a way to foster community and connection with your art. I am so grateful and appreciative of the relationships I’ve made through it, and hope we can all continue building bridges together through our art around the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/sarahromanowsky
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/sarahromanowsky/
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/sromanowsky
• Other: TikTok:
  https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMd9XBd5k/

Image Credits

Maximiliano Torandell

Timothy Salaz

Marina Milosevic