Alec Stoddard

Alec Stoddard is a performance artist exploring themes of identity construction, body sovereignty, and kinesthetic strategies of queer survivance through the spectacular body. The sensation-based partnership he employs with looped chains approaches circus as a physical thinking exercise and the acrobatic body as a contemplation for euphoria-led guidance. With a diverse onstage background ranging from concert bassoonist to fetish artist to finally aerialist in 2013, their work has consistently straddled the worlds of low-brow underground and contemporary fine art.

Alec’s aerial understanding has expanded through student, teacher, and performer lenses. Originally from Orlando, Florida, USA, he was a hammock soloist and ensemble member of the performance troupe Suspended Artistry and a coach at Orlando Aerial Arts before moving to Los Angeles, California to further develop their work on aerial chains. Since living in LA, Alec has been the resident chain goblin at The Aerial House and has been spreading the bruise noodle news to anywhere he can drive hundreds of pounds of chain, like Kinetic Arts Center in Oakland, California. Their teaching style has evolved to mirror his own sensation-based research, rather than strictly syllabus-based learning, and they encourage chains students to use their own unique aerial and movement backgrounds to approach the immense possibilities of the heavy beasties.