Making Magic Out of Thin Air

In 2010, Christina Gelsone and Seth Bloom, a husband-and-wife clowning duo who go by the name Acrobuffos, saw the work of the kinetic sculptor Daniel Wurtzel, who in creations like “Pas de Deux” and “Air Fountain” sends huge swatches of colorful silk swirling in the air with carefully placed electric fans.

Acrobuffos first thought that “Pas de Deux” could be worked into a sort of omnibus clown act, alongside shtick from “Water Bombs,” a “water balloon gladiator show” they’ve toured as a street-theater piece in Europe. But once they started to work with Wurtzel’s fans and fabric, they quickly realized, as Gelsone put it: “This is actually its own thing. We have to make a whole show with this.”

The result is “Air Play,” a wordless hourlong spectacle that will play at the New Victory Theater from March 30 through April 15. The show expands on Wurtzel’s work, sending packing peanuts, umbrellas and balloons of various sizes aloft in balletic counterpoint with the performers. Here are five necessities to keep the show afloat:

As they’ve toured the world, Acrobuffos have had a crash course in the physics of air in enclosed spaces, battling venues over their HVAC systems — they must be off during the show — and learning that even the most state-of-the-art theaters have air leaks and are subtly subject to exterior weather conditions.

What’s more, Ms. Gelsone said, “I have to find out how many people are going to be in the audience, because I have to know how hot the house is going to be.”

Why? Because the heat from a large crowd is like a magnet for floating material, particularly the balloons, which risk “totally getting sucked off the stage.” “So now,” she said, “in all those hot houses, Seth and I actually pull the act back three feet.”

One section of “Air Play” has Bloom and Gelsone “juggle” balloons that hover at eye level atop strings as if they were human dance partners — a seemingly simple trick that has taken painstaking trial and error to pull off. Not only do the weight of the strings and the texture of the balloons have to be standard; Bloom also has a preshow ritual of filling the balloons with precisely uniform amounts of helium.

To accomplish this feat, the show’s technical director, Todd Little, said Bloom uses a limited-edition device called “the Inflatinator,” whose air flow can be calibrated “down to the hundredths of a second.”

The physics of air flow isn’t the only practical science the “Air Play” duo have picked up on the job.

They’ve also learned to “de-staticize” their playing area, because static electricity can lead balloons to pop, which isn’t just a prop-killer; one loud pop in close proximity meant that Bloom lost hearing in his left ear for a little bit.

Even the two large latex balloons the duo climb into at one point benefit from special treatment, though this is something of a trade secret, Gelsone said: “You don’t even want to know what we do to the big balloons to keep them consistent.”

In the years since Acrobuffos began building it, “Air Play” has racked up close to 150 performances, from China to Chile to the Netherlands, and they’ve had the same technical director, Little, and stage manager, Flora Vassar.

Vassar has learned to adapt lighting and sound cues to a dizzying variety of international venues, and Little has been called on as a sort of silent stage partner: In one show, when an electric fan died, he rushed backstage with a leaf blower to correct the flow of the balloons.

The show’s development, which included a 2014 workshop at the New Victory as part of the company’s LabWorks program, has led Acrobuffos away from their manic street-performing style toward a more narrative piece that Gelsone described as “a philosophical expedition into what air is.”

And it isn’t just about bodies in space but about time. “It’s hard to slow people down enough in the street to enjoy a moment of poetry,” Bloom said.

The show has tried to capture some of the feeling of viewing Wurtzel’s air sculptures in a museum. “Initially we were worried, ‘Is this piece too long?'” Bloom said. “The answer has been no. We can see it when the audience slows down and gets into our rhythm. We can’t do that outdoors.”

Of course, that’s not the only thing that keeps “Air Play” indoors, he added: “We can’t do this outdoors because it would blow all over the place.”

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