Abstract

Art has had a close relationship with mathematics throughout history, which makes the study of specific characteristics of mathematical activity in the different artistic disciplines particularly interesting. Aerial silk is an artistic practice within the circus arts which is quickly growing in popularity among young adolescents in Chile and worldwide. This growing popularity offers an opportunity to research the physical-mathematical thinking that emerges from the practice of this art. This research adopts a socio-epistemological approach, which allows recognition of the construction and use of physical-mathematical knowledge rooted in the sociocultural context in which the practice in question is developed. The study, which is qualitative in nature, presents an ethnographic approach in two phases, with the aim of characterizing the cultural affiliation between the arts of aerial silk, mathematics, and physics among young adolescent girls. To achieve this objective, the practice of fifteen students aged 10 to 13, all participants in an aerial silk workshop at Colegio Artístico del Maule in the city of Talca, Chile (Maule Region) and their interactions with their instructor were observed and analyzed. The analysis allows for the identification of nine aerial silk figures displayed at two levels of difficulty (with and without knots), in which three main types of mathematical thinking are manifested, along with the implicit presence of different geometric and physical concepts. These elements condition the level of dexterity and precision that the girls achieve in the execution of static poses and drops. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.