In-Flight Theater

What We Do
Perform theater using trapeze and invented aerial objects that include floating steel sculptures and incongruous large objects. We integrate circus arts with physical acting to create stories, text, and characters set in multi-dimensional landscapes. In-Flight Theater uses acting and aerialism in nontraditional ways to find an exciting theater of body, mind, and spirit that is accessible for all audiences.
Teach classes, and residencies, designed for individuals, groups or educational institutions. Mara offers classes in low flying trapeze, mounted and swinging steel objects, mask performance and physical acting. Principles in theatre, aerial technique, and circus are explored as a way to develop character, story, kinesthetic awareness, presence, and physical craft. Mara offers private aerial and acting lessons and on going multi-generational classes. Mara has developed Flying Over Forty, an aerial workshop for women over 40. She is available to coach theatre ensembles as well as individual artists and theater companies interested in incorporating flight into their work. Classes are taught in an atmosphere of safety and respect and include specialized conditioning components.
Write Original Plays that connect the fiercely dynamic partnership of gravity, performer, and apparatus. We create stories in the air that are informed by character and narrative rather than for special effect or spectacle presented to the audience. We believe in the body as a frontier for creative expression.
Who We Are
Artistic Director, Mara Neimanis Mara Neimanis creates theatre in the air using trapeze and invented aerial apparatus that include floating steel sculptures and incongruous large objects. Drawing on traditions of Mask Performance, Clown, and Commedia dell’Arte, her work integrates circus arts with physical acting to create stories, text, and characters set in multi-dimensional landscapes. Mara has created touring solo and ensemble aerial plays that include multi-disciplinary collaboration with cross-generational populations and cultures since 1997 Mara trained at The San Francisco School of Circus Arts, Trapeze Arts, Oakland, and The Toronto School of Circus. She is a protégé' of aerial pioneer, Terry Sendgraff, and is a graduate of The Dell'Arte International School Of Physical Theatre where she served as an instructor and company member for seven years. Mara was a Creative Alliance Resident Artist from 2004-2007 where she created her hit solo aerial show, Air Heart, and holds an MFA in Theatre from Towson University. Neimanis has toured aerial performances and taught residencies in Israel, Latvia, Canada. She has served as a guest artist at Rhodes College, University of Missouri at Kansas City and University of Missouri at Springfield, University of Toronto Graduate Department in Theatre, Cal Arts, and serves as a guest artist teaching acting to animators at MICA. Mara teaches classes in Mask Performance, Aerial Performance, and Circus Skills at her Aerial studio at Load Of Fun in the Station North Arts District in Baltimore. Recent projects include The Snow Queen, an aerial adaptation of the famous dark fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen using a mixed hearing and deaf ensemble as well as Gravity Stories, developed at Stevenson University with theatre students and students in the Sociology department. Mara is curating the first ever Baltimore Aerial Festival in October at Load Of Fun, Baltimore USA.
Awards And Honors 2009 Recipient of Baltimore City Community Arts Grant 2008 Recipient of The Ellis Rabb Fund for Visiting Artists, Rhodes College Recipient of the 2008 Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award 2008 Recipient of Baltimore City Individual Artist Award 2000 Recipient of The Native Cultures Grant of California, created/ produced Borders & Borderless with the Yurok and Hoopa tribes of Northern California
Load Of Fun Studio, 120 North Ave, Baltimore MD Tel 410 800 8685 mara.inflighttheater@gmail.com 2006 West Rogers Ave, Baltimore MD 21209