By Will Pafford, Staff Writer

Julia Langenberg hangs upside down, suspended in a metal hoop like a child dangling from playground monkey bars, and begins spinning about 30 feet above the 2 million gallons of water in the Sea World tank below. 

Her costume is a bright, fiery medley of different shades of purple, blue, green, red and orange, with feathery strips jutting out from her headpiece, causing her to resemble something between a parrot and a phoenix as she performs in the Sea World show, “VIVA!”

Langenberg, a Westlake High School graduate and aerial dancer, began working with the show in March.

“VIVA!” is a spectacle that incorporates beluga whales and Pacific white-sided dolphins with the stunts of synchronized swimmers, aerialists and high-divers, according to Sea World. 

Langenberg was giving aerial dancing classes when one of her students, an aerialist at Sea World, told her about “VIVA!” and World Entertainment Services, the company that contracts the talent for the show. 

Although Langenberg had thorough experience aerial dancing on cloth, the metal hoop she would be using in the show was relatively new. 

She exchanged lessons with the student who already worked at Sea World, however, and picked up the new apparatus in about five lessons. 

“It hurt a lot,” she says. 

Langenberg sent World Entertainment Services a DVD to show her skills in the air, and the company hired her for the show. 

One of the first adjustments was working over water instead of concrete.

This was partly a relief.

“I knew I couldn’t get hurt,” she says. 

The blue water, blue stadium walls and waves below were disorienting at first, but she became accustomed to the changes. 

One of the biggest differences from her past performances was the scale of the audience. 

Shows in the past were more intimate, but at Sea World, Langenberg performs for between 15,000 and 20,000 people daily. 

“I really love performing for big audiences,” she says. 

After the show, Langenberg usually stands at the bottom of the stadium seating so audience members can talk to her and take pictures with her. 

Many of the children she meets are in awe. 

“A lot of kids have never seen that before,” she says. 

One audience member, Kelly Price, 20, says the acrobats and aerialists looked like they were having a lot of fun. 

“It made me want to join the circus,” she says. 

These interactions with the audience allow Langenberg to talk about aerial dancing and reach more people than ever before. 

She also performs full time, and a steady job never hurts.  

“The paycheck is nice,” she says. 

Her favorite part of this new opportunity is working with the animals. 

“You don’t really get to hang out above dolphins very much,” she says. 

During the show, Langenberg hangs upside down while looking at the dolphins below, a view no one else can see. 

She also has unique interactions with the animals. 

At the end of the performance, a dolphin leaps from the water to touch a cloth hanging from her hoop.

“I actually really enjoy it,” she says. “The dolphins and whales are kind of like my coworkers.” 

Working with animals can be unpredictable, however. 

Katie Hornstrom, a representative at Sea World, says the trainers use positive reinforcement and rewards to train the animals, so the dolphins and whales still have a choice in whether they perform certain behaviors. 

“It’s all voluntary on the animal’s part,” she says. 

At one point in the show, Langenberg says there are about 10 different possible scenarios based on what the animals decide to do. 

“You just have to be prepared for anything,” she says. 

Langenberg recently even swam in the pool with the beluga whales as part of the park’s Beluga Interaction Program, which is open to the public. 

Langenberg also enjoys her people coworkers. 

Human cast members spend between 10 and 12 hours per day working out and conditioning with each other, so they are naturally tight-knit. 

“I have a lot of fun with them,” she says. 

Performing at Sea World is not only fun for the moment, it’s opening doors for future opportunities as Langenberg learns how to perform on new apparatuses. 

“It’s just expanded what I do and what I’m capable of doing,” she says.