Tag Archives: Contortionists

Sometime last year I got together with Wobblycat and Mark Gornik and took part in something amazing. Us three lucky guys found two extremely talented and beautiful young women who started contorting and making our jaws drop literally all day long. The performers were Danielle and "G". Wobbly flexed his camera as the "bendy girls" (Mark's words) did contortion and acro all over Mark's custom built Harley and my stock-is-cool-too Suzuki. The photo shoot has been a hit ever since.

"G" - Dancer / Contortionist / Aerialist
The world is a better place when hanging upside down

Adrian at YouMotorcycle proposed the idea to me of writing an outsider’s perspective of motorcyclists.

As ignorant as this might sound, up until 3 months ago I didn’t think there was much of a motorcycle community, let alone an entire motorcycle world, but YouMotorcycle has opened up my eyes to something new to me.

YouMotorcycle follows some very cool motorcyclists on Twitter. It's a great way of finding out what's new and exciting in your field of interest.

When we think about it, motorcycles and the performing arts don't always go hand in hand. Something about running a motorcycle on a stage for too long killing dancers. Imagine my surprise when the most interesting motorcycle-related tweet I came across in the YouMotorcycle Twitter feed was from "G", the city of Toronto's top professional contortionist, and a non-motorcyclist (boo! hiss!).

She tweeted a post from Fstoppers, a video blog. The Progressive International Motorcycle show needed some promotional material. They teamed up with i.d.e.a. and with the help of performers and body paint artists began transforming humans into motorcycles.

Not so long ago, a young woman who's boyfriend just crashed on a motorcycle asked the internet, "Internet, how do I stop my boyfriend, a motorcyclist, from showing off on his motorcycle?" She asked a little late though, as her boyfriend was already in the hospital, the end result of having under-valued a corner, and over-valued his own skills in approaching it on a group ride.

Countless riders chimed in on the evils of showing off on your motorcycle. Only one dared to stand up for the nation of loud and proud motorcycle show-offs. Naturally, that one voice was my own.

The last post on our Motorcycle Contortionists Photoshoot we heard from G who told us exactly what it meant to be contortionist, and how the shoot came to be. If you haven't seen the pics already, take a look. G's performed internationally including as far away prestigious events in Rome, Italy for the National Ballet of Milan. She and fellow performer Dani took their talents of flexibility and strength and got to work at bending on, around, and all over motorcycles.

One of Mark Gornik's motorcycles, a rigid framed Harley-Davidson Sportster based chopper was a centerpiece for our contortionists. Mark has been building hot rods and motorcycles since he was sixteen years old and was willing to let the girls put his steel to the test.

Sometimes in life good things happens. Things you never could have imagined, like a girl doing handstand push ups in your condo asking you about doing a photoshoot on motorcycles. Did I mention she can put her feet behind her head?

I reached out to the world famous WobblyCat, an avid motorcyclist, photographer, and superhero. What followed was a full day's event, a first ever motorcycle photoshoot. Two girls on motorcycles doing very interesting things.