Past Performances

The Steampunk Festival delights on all levels: costumes, libations, entertainment.  B.A.D. dancers were decked out in full steampunk attire twirling above the masses on lyra, rope, and trapeze.  The evening set featured lighting and projection that gave an extra magical air to the performance.  Of course, the festival is in celebration of the winery’s release of a new batch of Steampunk

We’ve performed indoors and outdoors all over WNY, but this was our first show in a circus tent! B.A.D. performed 3 sets of aerial silks and trapeze as a part of the Paul Antonio ensemble in The Circus Variety Show in Groton’s yearly festival.  This circus show was filled with playful top notch acts including clowning, magic tricks, hand balancing and fire

Our second annual year at the Annual Brant Summerfest was just as delightful as the first.  The upbeat and easygoing atmosphere of this festival is very family-friendly, which is convenient because it usually falls again on Father’s Day.  Dads and their families love the live bands, games, bounce houses, food vendors and contests, the parade, and aerial

We kicked off our summer by heading out to Gowanda to help celebrate the restoration of the beautiful Hollywood Theater, a cousin to North Tonawanda’s Rivera Theater.  It was a stunning venue to showcase our aerial acts alongside some fabulous flow arts performances by three guest performers from Pyromancy.  Gowanda has some fantastically friendly residents whose cheers helped energize our sets to new levels of excitement.   We loved exploring the motorcycle filled streets, watching the stunt shows, and enjoying the live music as well. You can find more information about the historic

The Alt Theatre, saw the evolution of Silver, Silk, & Steel from the first rehearsals in November 2015 to the beautiful display of glamour and grit on performance day.  We began with inspiration from the materials of the apparatuses themselves, and found a synergy with the silks, trapeze, rope, and lyra — as well as with each other.  With a great collaborative effort from the whole crew, Nina and Erica, led the creation of two longer pieces, focusing on artfully transitioning between the air and the floor. Toni Haugen’s soulful signing and Jordan Cox’s expressive piano and voice arrangements enriched our pieces with live music.  Guest artist Jeannette Oubre, who will tour nationally with Circus Smirkus this summer, performed a stunning solo on corde lisse, and Jolene and Nora Lemke set another B.A.D. first by performing their mother-daughter aerial duet. We are proud and grateful for everyone who came and helped us pack our lovely little theater two nights in a row! Thanks to John Shotwell for the great lighting design, and to Paul Fanara at Living

We have performed at Cirque de La Lune 3 years running. The colorful old-world charm and spacious-yet-cozy Dnipro Ukrainian Hall is reason enough to love this event–and that backdrop combined with a variety of performances, fortune teller tents, and this year, a Film Noir theme, made for weirdly wonderful evening.  It is one of our favorite settings for a chapter of our aerial adventure. Photos coming

The Imperial Court Masquerade is just as swanky as it sounds. Masks and finery abound as the guests mingle at the historic Hamlin House in downtown Buffalo.  It’s certainly tough to compete with the fabulousness of the drag queens, but the talent is well rounded with burlesque and jazz dancers, live music, fire and aerial performers. This year the event featured The Kingdom of Animalia as its theme, and proceeds benefited the Imperial Court of Buffalo.  B.A.D. dancers had a great time dressing up as a full menagerie: we had a two cats, a cheetah, a flamingo, a blackbird, and a unicorn.  Much thanks to Loop magazine for the great photos.  

Halloween brought us to The Witches Ball, one of the best parties of the year.  The Hotel Lafayette has just enough historical spook to really set the stage.  The decorations by Terror Technologies and Nickel City Novelties are all out! And of course the costumes are a display of Buffalo creativity on full blast. We had our rig set up in the back of the Grand Ballroom (right next to the giant clown mouth) and we interspersed our acts with classic Buffalo entertainment happening throughout the night: belly dancers, the Foxy Diamondz, Eye Candy Burlesque, Magic Mike, and Green Jelly, to name a few.  Our set featured a marionette doll (Kenzi), Twisty the Clown (Larris), a unicorn (Erica), a bearded lady (Jolene), a fox (Anastasia), an awesome sci-fi lady (Jenn K) and the universe (Toni).

This was the penultimate performance of the outdoor season (goodbye summer, come back soon!)  The event took place at a new location overlooking the Buffalo River, and with a view of the new solar panel plant in the distance.  In the tradition of Elab, this event mixed live art, live music, and lots installations with an industrial South Buffalo backdrop.  We enjoyed the perfect lighting of nature’s best stage throughout the evening. Check out the photo of Melissa Boglioli featured in Artvoice: http://artvoice.com/issues/v14n39/av_party_photos  

Elmwood Avenue Festival for the Arts gave us the hilarious and rare opportunity to perform our work in the parking lot of Panera Bread Company.  A good natured see-and-be-seen even, EAFA offers more than 170 local artists displaying and selling their work in a variety of arts mediums.  And you can’t beat setting up the rig for some outdoor aerial in the heart of the city on a perfect summer day!