From time to time, you may have seen aerial dancers hanging from the sides of buildings around Oakland and elsewhere in the Bay Area. The company behind these high-flying performances, Bandaloop, has reason to celebrate: a new long-term lease at its West Oakland studio near 18th Street and Peralta.
While the group has been in the space for 11 years, members say they were lucky to be given a 20-year lease by the building’s new owner—ensuring the company can continue bringing its unique hybrid of performative climbing and dance to public spaces in the Bay Area and beyond.
“One of the things that’s kept me going is [that] we move in public spaces, we dance in public spaces, we rehearse in public spaces. [And that] inspires us to connect with our surroundings,” said the group’s artistic director Melecio Estrella, during a community open house to mark the occasion on Nov. 12.
Guests in attendance (including myself) were invited to “fly”—a free 20-minute flight test with an instructor, while secured into a harness and hanging off one of the studio walls. The event also featured a “tea time” chat with Bandaloop founder Amelia Rudolph and performances from Bandaloop troupe members.
The studio itself, recently upgraded, is split into two main areas, Studio West and Studio East. Bandaloop is inviting members of the community to help rename the studios by visiting their website or scanning QR codes which are visible throughout the space. On the day of the event, the doors opened at 10 a.m. to welcome a class from Shawl Anderson Dance Center in Studio West. Meanwhile, sign-ups for the “free to fly” experience quickly filled up in Studio East.
While their studio is large enough to create a routine, the company needs higher walls to replicate the conditions at their live performances, which Estrella said often take place “on the side of the buildings that are anywhere from 100 to 300 feet tall.” Bandaloop will often rehearse outdoors in Oakland an area known as Khan’s Alley near Oscar Grant Plaza, as well as on a large wall on West Grand Avenue near Broadway.
“Every time we tour, every time we go to a new performance location, the dance also has to adapt and change based on what is available,” said Rose Huey, Bandaloop’s director of education and a core dancer. So having a variety of places to practice—indoors, and out—is a plus.
The newly updated dual studio in West Oakland is a loft-style, 8,000-square-foot facility with ADA-compliant dance floors, three 28-foot dance walls, and wardrobe-design and costume-fitting rooms on a second floor. The facility will be used by Bandaloop members to develop choreographies and for public classes.
Bandaloop, founded by Rudolph in 1991, gets its name from Jitterbug Perfume, a novel by Tom Robbins about a tribe in the Himalayas that danced to stay forever young.
“We’re merging the two [dance and rock climbing] in ways that change with the membership of our company,” said Estrella. Much like performance locations are different, he said, the art form itself is also different for each person who practices, learns, and performs with Bandaloop. “Each new person [who] comes to this form, they bring their dance lineage to the rope and harness and the wall,” he said. “In that way, our dance vocabulary has been evolving over the last 32 years.”
As Bandaloop has changed, so too have the physical environments the troupe performs within, added Estrella. “In a very unique way, as an arts organization, we’re engaged with the landscape and the changing landscapes of Oakland because we’re outside all the time.”
Since its inception, the group has traveled far outside of the Bay Area to perform; Bandaloop has appeared in 35 countries, on skyscrapers and natural structures, including in the Himalayas. It was on the side of a cliff, said Estrella, that Rudolph realized that climbing and dance could intermingle to create a new art form.
Bandaloop instructor Rose Huey, who taught in partnership with Destiny Arts Center, grew up in Oakland and was introduced to Bandaloop as a child through the company’s youth performance program. “Before we went into the theater, I saw dancers come in from over the roof and dance on the wall,” remembers Huey. “I didn’t really know what it was, but I knew I wanted to do it.”
Rudolph, who is nearing 60, still performs but no longer oversees the group’s daily activities. Estrella, who has been with the company since 2002 and became the director in 2020, said he’s been “honored to take it over and sort of steer the ship.”
“I take a lot of pride in having a multi-generational approach to this form that seems very athletic,” said Estrella. “There’s a beautiful spread of ages that defies the sort of assumptions about how old a dancer should be when they’re performing professionally.”
Huey said the studios also provide a “wonderful home” for Bandaloop’s education programs, where classes are open to children ages 9 and up.
Huey described Bandaloop’s activities as “physically intense,” but said the company is dedicated to being inclusive of all body types, with programming that safely accommodates people’s physical restrictions and limitations. “We have a pretty good skill set at welcoming all types of bodies and all types of learners,” said Huey.
Newcomers are taught about Bandaloop’s “culture of safety” around ropes when learning tying techniques like using a belayer, a rock-climbing device to secure the harness.
“It also includes emotional mental safety,” said Huey. “We want the people who come to learn from us to feel supported and uplifted and like they can bring their full selves to the work. We might have a really diverse group of students but we’re always trying to work with each one in the ways that they need.”
The Bandaloop studio is located at 1601 18th Street in Oakland and is available to rent for events and private classes. For questions about Bandaloop and its programs, contact info@bandaloop.org or visit Bandaloop’s social media accounts on Instagram and X (fka Twitter).
