Aerial silks originate in France in 1959, with Cirque du Soleil incorporating them into their performances.

Beginning in 1987.

Since then, they've evolved into an elegant and dynamic performance art that combines poses, inversions, and body movements to tell dramatic and evocative stories.

In the past decade, silks have also emerged as a fitness option, with aerial silk gyms cropping up worldwide.

Starting out it can be really intimidating, but it definitely is something that builds up over time, the strength for it and everything.

Jenna Algeo was introduce to aerial silks a few years ago, with no background in weigh training, dance or choreography.

She really didn't thin she had the strength to do silks Any fitness level can, we can do some form of silks.

You don't have to be climbing to the top to be doing silks, so you don't have to be doing crazy things.

You can be in a knot or doing something that's a little more simple for whatever skill leve or strength level that you have.

One gym offering aerial fitness is Fit to Fly in Fort Myers.

It's owned and operated by Katie O'Connell.

She's found tha with consistent weekly practice, newbies can perform sophisticated routines in relatively short amount of time.

O'Connell says that newcomers quickly discove the kind of moves they prefer.

It's just trying to get people comfortable and figuring out what they like best.

Some people like to be upside down a lot.

Some people like to do drop where you start at the top, and then you wrap a certain number of wraps, and then when you let go, you'll tumble down to a certain position.

Some people prefer to do a lot of more flowy posing, that sort of thing, but it's just kind o figuring it out as you go along.

Trying a little bit of everything, being brave, giving it a go, and then you figure out what you like.

Algeo delights in stacking drops.

Sara Waitkus is a Kayla Forte of taking aerial silks in a different direction.

They like working as a duo.

They've been doing some different, doubles acts, and it's very cool.

It's kind of another unique offshoot, almost a separate apparatus, if you will, because you're holding on to another person in lieu of the silks at some points.

And so there's a lot of trust there, obviously.

So you need to know who you're performing with and what they're capable of and what you're capable of.

While most aerialists do silks for the exercise, some love performing.

There are a lot more national and local competitions and things going on.

There are a lot more small local performances and things going on.

Things like what's happening, the sideshow at the Sidney & Berne Art Center.

There are a couple of other local studios down in Bonita and Naples that offer local shows here and there.

And it's becom a lot more open to the public.

It's become a lot more accessible to people who wanted to try it.

with the silks, I can feel graceful, but it's because I was taught certain tricks and taught different sequence and I can then make it my own.

Versus with dance you're kind of out in the open.

It's just your body, like performing for you with the silks.

You have things to go off of, if that makes sense.

So I think that was a perfect in-between point for me without the dance training, without serious gymnastic training or acrobatics training.

This was a nice like midpoint for me.