FM AERIAL & MOVEMENT ARTS

Since April 2019, FM Aerial & Movement Arts has offered aerial classes for the community to take part in. As the studio and variety of classes have evolved over the years, Owner Yvette Reyes has pushed through various challenges to continue her goal of offering a space for people to come and have support, community and fun.

worked the second shift, working from 4 p.m. until 3 a.m. I didn't know anybody in Fargo… so, trying to find friends was something that was, as an adult, hard. There [were] no women as my coworkers,” Yvette said. “So, I ended up doing a Google search.”

After a few searches, Yvette found a local, four-week pole dancing class. She went to the class and met peers who would go on to be friends and even continued students as she transitioned to owning the studio. With community found, Yvette soon found an opportunity present itself—the owner of what was at the time called, Total Woman, was going to close the doors.

M Aerial & Movement Arts has and continues to grow in the community under Yvette’s leadership, but she accounts a lot of that to different mentors and friends along the way. The first time she visited the studio (that she now owns), she was a 20-yearold, fresh graduate from welding school, attending a pole class in 2016.

“I had first moved to Fargo right after I finished welding school. Being a welder and a woman is really isolating, especially because I

Each of FM Aerial’s apparatuses (pole, lyra and silk) has a four-week introductory class series in addition to the regular class levels. This is a great series to sign up for to learn the basics of the apparatus and explore something new! Sign up at fmaerial.com

Yvette's experiences from her childhood and teen years of moving into small communities and wanting to find a place she belonged, along with a desire to not lose the space she’d grown to love as a student, inspired her to make the decision to purchase the studio and keep the business open.

She rebranded to FM Aerial & Movement Arts because she wanted to move away from just solely offering pole classes to more of the aerial arts. With the help from a few experienced friends over the years, she now is able to offer adult pole, lyra and silk classes, as well as youth silk classes. The organization performs locally at different events like galas, as well as at community events hosted by Folkways in Fargo frequently.

There are a variety of adult classes offered for pole, lyra and silk. But there are also youth classes! Youth classes are separated into two classes by age (6 to 9 years old, and 10 to 14 years old) and dive into the skill of aerial silk arts. Sign up at fmaerial.com/ schedule--sign-up

There are two studios, one that houses the pole classes and one that has a structure built to withstand the silk and lyra classes. The different aerial arts, or apparatuses as Yvette refers to them, offered at the studio differ in skill, how they are performed and practiced and what aerial tools they use.