Feast your eyeballs on this gorgeous suspension footage care of Valnei and his mob.
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Reminiscent of the recently posted cliff suspension in Guatemala, Solja and the Ephemme Performance crew (Brett Perkins, Anne Ott, Mike Dimas, and Neil Kohanski — Anomaly in Echo Park, LA/CA) helped celebrate Neil’s 30th birthday with some suspension-rigged rock climbing. From Solja’s IAM page:
It is a decent hike up a fairly wide trail 3/4 of the way to the fall, then things get significantly more adventurous. Portions of the trail are about as wide as a single foot with a steep slope down toward the rocky ravine below. Mike Dimas, Annetastic, Ishmail22 (Neil), and I hurriedly hiked to the waterfall point hoping to beat the setting of the sun. The hills get pretty cold when the sun goes down and it makes it a lot harder to see the hooks and the surrounding skin. I had hoped to rig the equipment over some overhanging tree branches, but it turned out to be a little less advantageous than I remembered. The tree that was firmly rooted into the cliff side didn’t quite clear enough of the rocky wall to allow a good free suspension.
There were no viable trees across the gorge to run a line to or from, so a new plan was developed: Neil would rappel down the rocks by the hooks in his back and suspend in the open hollow at the end of the falls. It was roughly 50 feet to the shallow pooling water below, he would need to go about 30 feet below us to reach a free hanging point.
He rappelled the rock face two times, forwards and backwards, but found facing away from the rocks was the most comfortable. He hung below us for a while before the light started to fade beyond the point of being able to monitor his safety and consciousness. We brought him back up and loaded up the gear. The return trip was a little quicker, we all scrambled up the hillside following some small animal trails. It required an intense use of all four limbs, holding on to rocks and roots along the way to avoid falling backwards. Neil remarked that he had no discomfort or pain in the hike up and that the two large hooks we used was quite nice contrasted with the 4 smaller ones he had always done in the past.
More pictures continue after the break.
This intense two-point resurrection-style suspension is from a recent The Hanged Man Team show in Melbourne Australia (c/o Piercing Pete). Click through for another photo from the same event, a22-person circle jerk, assuming I’m counting correctly.
I’m sure you’ll agree after you’ve watched this video of João‘s O-Kee-Pa suspension (more) in Petrópolis, Brazil..
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He’s definitely a keeper!
Ron Garza, John Durante, and Chris Glunt have been exploring the world, and recently found themselves at San Marcos on Lake Atitaln in Guatemala — $10 a night accommodations — and after doing some 50ft cliff dives, already high on adrenaline, Chris suspended with two 6ga hooks and rigging tied to a boulder. Looks like an amazing experience — continue reading for more photos, and add their pages to your reading list to follow their adventures of course.
And some random travel photos as well… What’s stopping you from being in pictures like these?
Tabitha says that her and Kaz give PEND suspension a little bit of “ethnic change”… Photos (more after the break) by NJB Photography in Grand Rapids.
I’m always so jealous of the beautiful photos I receive from AlienX (Xtreme Body Art) in Natal, Brasil… I haven’t posted scenic suspension photos in a brief while, so let me post two they did recently (the girl is xFABIx and the guy is Henrique). A small gallery of pictures of each continues after the break.
From my point of view, a large part of suspension (and body ritual in general) is intense connectivity with the surrounding environment and the universe as a whole, so a natural setting is important…
PS. If you like these sorts of photos (and really, I think the my favorite suspension pictures probably come out of Brasil), what’s stopping you from planning a suspension vacation?
I’ve just posted a really engrossing interview with Allen Falkner about fifteen years at the forefront of suspension, reflections on selling his long-lived piercing and tattoo studio, and his new business doing tattoo removal. Also included is a repost of an audio interview from 2000. Click through to check out the interview, and please come back to comment.
January recently put on this marionette suspension show with Michelle as the marionette, costume and makeup by J-Chans Designs, rig by Mr. Chris at Pavlovia in Denver, and photography by Shawn Shell Photography.
