My girlfriend is super passionate about the aerial arts. She does aerial silks, lyra, trapeze, and loop straps and she has even managed to get me into practicing aerial silks and straps too. The two of us are also into acroyoga and standing acrobatics. So, it’s not surprising that one of the top criteria we had when we were searching for a new house was to have high ceilings, which allow room for aerial and acro. Our circus friends had mentioned to us that Donovan Chandler at the Dallas Circus Center installs aerial rigs in people’s homes, so it was a no brainer to seek his help once I got my financial ducks in a row to fund the building of our home rig.
Donovan was professional from beginning to end. He investigated the feasibility of the rig since high ceilings don’t necessarily mean the house has the structure to support a rig. I was actually missing a good load bearing wall on one side, so it necessitated a truss to be installed, but to my delight, it was definitely feasible. Donovan gave us a clear explanation of what would be involved in the aerial rig construction and was able to give estimates in a timely fashion.
Donovan and two of his Dallas Circus Center crew, who were also professional and friendly, managed to finish the construction of the rig in a single day (about 8 hours worth of work) and we could not be happier with the result. The end product was a truss painted white that blends better with the house’s white walls connected to a heavy duty beam that leads over to sit on the load bearing wall my house fortunately has, and a pulley system that leads to the rig point that drops down through the ceiling through a recessed lighting style hole. I could definitely see how much experience Donovan has in on site troubleshooting as I had the pleasure of watching them do the work, taking on each obstacle in stride. He even brought in an excellent dry wall guy who did his job so well with the re-texturing, that you can’t tell there was ever a huge hole in my ceiling large enough to fit a large beam through.
Donovan and his crew helped me give my aerialist girlfriend the ultimate birthday present. I highly recommend anyone who is loves aerial enough to want a home rig to contact Donovan.
