Corde Lisse (Aerial Rope)

Corde lisse, French for smooth rope, is aerial acrobatics on a single vertically suspended rope, known in English simply as aerial rope. The apparatus is typically soft cotton around thirty to thirty-five millimetres thick, rigged from a single point and worked barehanded. Its vocabulary is built from climbs, wraps around the leg, hip, waist or neck, held postures, rolls and controlled drops in which stored wraps release under body weight. Performers work without a net or safety line, relying entirely on their own strength and technique to prevent a fall, so grip endurance, wrap accuracy and the ability to arrest a descent are the core competencies. The discipline is closely related to Spanish web, which adds a hand loop and a ground-based rotator, and to aerial silks, which substitute two strips of fabric for the rope and allow slower, more forgiving wraps; rope is the less compliant apparatus and rewards precision over cushioning. Corde lisse appears throughout contemporary circus repertoire, including Cirque du Soleil productions, and is taught as a standard aerial discipline at schools such as Cirkus Cirkor.