We’re ever safety conscious and make sure that everyone on a high-impact site are kitted out in the requisite helmets, gloves and safety shoes. We’ve even gone so far as to buy safety shoes that are masked as casual shoes and no one is able to tell the difference. That’s being fashion-conscious and careful!

Tensioning devices are used to create the tension in taut line systems or Zipline. Rather than doing this the old-school way – with a whole group of people pulling on the rope until it has the needed tension – this self-locking device gently accomplishes the same goal by tightening the rope in a controlled manner while the load cell measures the tension. It reaches the desired tension and self-locks…voila, the rope is very taut and very secure! Here again, we’re the only company in the country that extensively uses this technology.

We use “travelling skates or trolleys” for our cross-travel systems (which move people or props from point A to point B) – basically, they’re a metal piece of equipment which runs on the cable. This gear isn’t available off the shelf; Natura designs what we need and then has it manufactured locally, ensuring that the unit’s strength exceeds the maximum load by at least three times the limit that we would apply on it. Another piece of gear that puts us ahead in the safety game!

Load cells are a very advanced piece of equipment that monitors the load on our high tension systems. This system allows us to monitor and understand how the different forces work on our systems and factor that into future jobs for a more efficient setup. We get them manufactured locally but also source them from a company in America.

At present, we are the only company in the country utilizing this technology – it’s safe to say that it puts us a big step forward compared to other outfits that are executing the same work we do but without due consideration for the load on their gear!

Whether it’s for our riggers’ safety while they work or we’re using it for our performances, our harnesses are quite an important part of our gear. We have a huge variety of them – jerk vests, bikini harnesses, sit harnesses, full-body harnesses, chest harnesses etc. As they play an important role in keeping our person safely airborne, each of these harnesses is certified under UIAA or EN standards. We make sure we purchase these from only those manufacturers, domestic and international, who conform to these given standards. Alternatively, if we need to get something specially designed in India, we get it tested ourselves!

Given how often we hoist people, props and everything else into the air, and how long we have to keep them up there, we definitely need the best in winches and motors. We have a large variety of winches that offer variable lifting capacities and speeds. We had the good fortune to find an Italian company that manufactures electric and hydraulic motors , This company custom designs our equipment based on our equipment and conforming to our given specifications – international standards and totally unique; it’s a sweet deal!

As an added measure, we also derate our winches or a hoist for human flying. For example, if the manufacturer produces a hoist for us that is certified for 1,000kgs, we derate it for human flying by applying a minimum safety factor ratio of 1:3 and maximum of 1:10; what that translates to is that every time we have to fly a human being on a 1,000kg-rated hoist, we allow only 200kgs to be lifted (artist + Prop), and if the act has a lot of dynamic drops and falls – like in an aerial silk act – we would only allow 100kgs (the weight of the artist alone).

Any and all our metal pieces of equipment, we deem “hardware”. This covers things like carabiners, D shackles, belay Devices, and ascenders and descenders for vertical movement. Every one of our hardware pieces are certified and rated for mountaineering / industrial safety, certified for static loads under EN standards and dynamic loads under UIAA standards; the latter are used more for human application.

Everyone knows ropes and how to use them, sure; but for the kind of work we do, we use nothing other than Dynex ropes – it’s called “soft steel” simply because it’s as strong as steel despite being a fiber rope. One of the most expensive ropes in the market, it’s largely not available in India, Very advanced technology, it was originally used to anchor large ships to harbor…over a period of time, the rest of the world started adapting it for theatrical and stunt rigging. We use it for our performances and aerial acts thanks to its maximum load-bearing capacity versus its lightness of weight. What’s good for a ship is definitely good for us!