Trapeze School Hot After Getting "Sex In The City" Plug

[matcom]

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NEW YORK — By day, Oleg Raynes programs computers, a job so immobile that it gave him three herniated disks and a pinched nerve. But Sunday night, he donned leopard-print tights and ran away to join the circus — for two hours, at least.

In a tent full of cheering people, he sliced through the air on a trapeze, worrying only about whether his tights would stay up. They didn't quite, but Raynes performed his trick with grace, and that was enough.

"Of course I feel nervous before I jump off the platform," he said after the show. "But it is a pleasant feeling. And afterwards I feel great."

About 18,000 students have come to the Trapeze School New York since it set up five years ago on the bank of the Hudson River. Nearly 100 come religiously every week for a physical and mental workout that gives them great abs and the unequaled thrill of flying.

Sunday was the students' autumn show, and it was a display not only of gravity-defying acrobatics, but also of corporate New Yorkers' secret lives, their superhero alter egos flying through the air with the greatest of ease, leaving their quotidian worries on the ground. Some have found love at the rig. Others have gotten jobs there. All have found courage.

Amy Growick, 28, a TV news producer who comes to fly nearly every day, spent 22 hours working on new tricks last week. Her best, a double back flip, is something straight out of Cirque du Soleil.

She woke up sick from a recurring staph infection Sunday morning and thought she would have to drop out of the show. But by late afternoon, she was there in a shiny cheetah-skin bodysuit she had made just for the show, and threw her double three times.

"I've worked so hard for this. There was no way I wasn't going to show up," she said. "It's like an addiction."

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The school got a huge boost after it was featured in an episode of "Sex and the City" in 2003, and became a favorite site for pre-wedding parties.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-trapeze20nov20,1,1281259,full.story?coll=la-news-a_section