To dance inside a wind tunnel while hearing music is now possible with today’s wireless technology and a few tricks. Lise Hernandez performed the first ever wind tunnel dancing performances, live and synchronized with music that she, the audience and the judges listened to during the 2nd Canadian Indoor Skydiving Championships at SkyVenture Montreal earlier this year.
Tamara Koyn, one of the first pioneers of freestyle skydiving in the mid-1980s, commented: “The heart of freestyle is about exploring complete freedom of creativity in freefall, and each person will have their own style of expression. By developing artistic indoor flying choreographed to music, Lise is an innovator advancing the creative elements of artistic flying to a whole new level with new possibilities of expression. It is yet another example of pioneering in creative flying … it can have many possibilities in both competitions and public performances.”
How can you hear music inside the wind tunnel Lise?
First, I had to find a way to reduce the noise of the tunnel as much as possible—the noise level is 100 decibels. Laboratoire Ear Protection fabricated custom-fit ear seals with earphones. These are comfortable and stay in place. However, these still did not sufficiently reduce the noise of the tunnel so as to be able to hear the music without turning it up to full volume. Loud noise INSIDE your ear canal is not good, so I bought and fitted a small acoustic ear muff into my Parasport Italia Z1 helmet, after removing part of the helmet liner to fit the ear muffs). Now, I plug my earphones into my music player and I’m ready to fly.
How do the judges, spectators and yourself all hear the music in real time?
I use a wireless In-Ear Monitoring System – the Magic Box – from LD Systems, it’s a European brand. Musicians use this device. It basically consists of two boxes: the transmitter and one or more receivers. The transmitter resides outside the tunnel and is connected to the audio source (my music player). It transmits the music to the receivers, one of which I connect to my earphones and carry with me. (If you want to hear the music in the tunnel speakers, you can use a small table mixer.) The receivers are typically wireless and work on a radio-frequency. The frequency varies from country to country. The equipment I used at SkyVenture Montreal was from Europe, thus the radio frequency was specially modified to work in Canada. I feel very fortunate to have support from my sponsor, LD Systems. Without their help, I would not have been able to present my project of dancing with music at this competition. Using this Magic Box we will all be able to fly in the tunnel with our friends, listening to the same music, which is also playing outside the tunnel too!
What is indoor sky-dancing and your vision of it?
It is the art of choreographing flying to music inside a wind tunnel. Our air sport continues to grow and acquire new forms of flying and new artistic disciplines: Dynamic, Artistic Freeflying, NeoFreestyle, and so on. I see in the future that some of these disciplines will include music for their routines, but my ultimate goal is to develop the dance – to be able to express music with our bodies in the air: Rock & Roll, Hip Hop, Romantic, etc. Also, to create Dance Battle competitions. I envision competing and becoming an incredible flyer as a career, while pioneering this new art form of dancing in the wind tunnel with music.
Who is supporting you in this project?
I approached Tamara Koyn to coach me, because she has all the knowledge I was looking for: dance, freestyle, movement science and international judging experience. LD Systems, who believe in our sport and the music, designed and provided the audio equipment. Boogieman gives me a hand with the suits. Steve Neves from Ear Protection who developed custom ear seals according to my needs, and last but not least, my husband, even if he sometimes wants to run away from the house (our sport is very expensive).
How are others reacting to your idea of flying with music?
Mikhail Razomazov, one of my tunnel flying coaches, told me: “The artistic disciplines in the tunnel and skydiving will develop in this direction. Music connected with flight is the next logical step in indoor skydiving.” He thinks that music will help widen the audience and improve interest in this new form of dancing, combined with hip-hop and other music styles. He believes that this is really the next level of complexity in flight and the main thing is the total interest in developing yourself both as a flyer and as a dancer.
When, on his first flight with me, Mikhail was actually hearing the music, he said, “My emotions were filling me, and I even didn’t think about the flight in that moment, because the music made me move and whispered to me, as if by magic, what movement I should do next. I felt as though my body, my partner, and everybody who listened and watched us—we were all united by the music.”
Lise, what is next for you?
I plan to compete at the first ever FAI World Cup in Indoor Skydiving that will be held in Austin, Texas, this coming November.
What are your goals there?
The most important part for me being there is to help shape the competition, there is a lot of work to create the right competition format inside the wind tunnel regarding the artistic events. In addition to recognizing the winners, the aims of IPC competitons include promoting training, establishing a forum where ideas can be exchanged and developing/nurturing new concepts. They have an open competitors’ meeting at the end, when competitors discuss what they like or do not like about the rules. As a result, rules change and evolve. If the competitors are not there, then how will our voice will be heard?
You can check out the Magic Box at LD Systems website
Mikhail Razomazov
NeoFreestyle World Champion of the Indoor Skydiving World Championships 2012 at iFly Singapore
Artistic Freeflying Champion at the 2014 FAI World Parachuting Championships in Czech Republic
## Tamara Koyn
Freestyle pioneer since 1985
BA in Media Communication: Video/Film production and Methods of Teaching Dance with movement engineering course studies, Southern Illinois University and Webster University
World Freestyle Champion, 1992
FAI AE & FS Judge
