Program
Performances
Emily + Michael - Adagio
Emily LaHaie - Aerial Hammock
Megumi - Silks
Carmen - Dance Trapeze
Emily Wang - Straps
Gina Alm - Aerial Pole
Kitty Fang - Contortion
Evelyn Lazen - Hoop
Pam - Aerial Hammock
Autumn Jade - Aerial Rope
Barbara Gentile - Aerial Pole
Lily - Aerial Silks
Eckszooberanté -Dance Trapeze, Contortion
Olivia Tavolacci - Straps
Black Widow - Hoop
Hosted by Emily Lesinski
Thank You to
Sage - Stage Manager
Sean - Sound
Billie, Michael and Vova - Rigging
Danie - Program Notes / Design
Cast
Emily Lesinski, Host
Emily and Sean co-run CirqueHaus and Warrior Bridge. Emily is a physical therapist specializing in treating the circus community. She also trains handbalancing, partner acrobatics, aerial straps, and weight trains. She loves producing the shows in this space!
Black Widow
Black Widow is a New York City–based drag artist and dancer turned aerialist. Having performed on both land and sea, they bring a unique blend of artistry, athleticism, and flair to the stage. They are thrilled to return to Cirquehaus, this time unveiling a brand-new act creation.
Emily and Michael
Emily and Michael are nearing the end of their second year as acrobatic partners and second month as fiancés. This is the debut of their second act and first time performing at the Cirque Haus Open Stage.
Emily - @emilycbricker on instagram
Michael - @the_real_kichael on instagram
Emily LaHaie
Emily LaHaie is an NYC-based aerialist. A former competitive synchronized skater, she draws on a foundation in ballet and visual art to support her creative versatility. She has developed original acts on a variety of aerial apparatuses (dance trapeze, silks, rope, and hammock) continually exploring the interplay between movement, musicality, and storytelling in the air. Emily has performed at venues such as The Slipper Room, Bindlestiff Family Cirkus Open Stages, Aerial Arts NYC, and Friday Nights at SLAM. She’s always happier upside down.
Megumi Yamada
Megumi is a Brooklyn based circus performer from Japan, with 18 years of dance experiences onstage in theater, festival, film and events as a belly dancer and an aerial dancer, specializing in aerial silks, trapeze, lyra and stilt walking. Megumi has performed in New York City at Edison Ballroom, Elsewhere, Audacy, Macy's thanksgiving day parade, Fringe NYC. Beyond the city,Loomis Bros Circus in Florida, King Richard's Renaissance Fair in Massachusetts, to name a few. The new act is inspired by “Tale of princess Kaguya”, the Japanese folktale. Scene: she returns to the moon.
Instagram@megumicircusperformer
Kitty Fang
Kitty is a contortionist and coach based in New York and New Jersey. A former rhythmic gymnast, she found the art of Mongolian contortion during the COVID-19 lockdown. She currently teaches weekly classes at Aerial Arts in midtown and online. You can follow her on Instagram at @contortionkitty.
Pamela Duke
Pam was born in Thailand, raised in California, and has been living in New York City for the past two and a half years. She specializes in aerial hammock, which she discovered after taking up aerial yoga as a hobby during the pandemic. When she moved to NYC, she dove into hammock more seriously. She loves to train at Cirquehaus and take classes at Warrior Bridge. Outside the studio, she works in private equity as a climate investor.
Find her @aerial.pammock
Evelyn Lazen works in neuroscience research by day and trains at CirqueHaus by night. With 10 years of experience on silks, rope, Lyra, and trapeze and 3 years coaching at Echo Theater and Polaris Dance, Evelyn is passionate about aerial technique and theory, as well as improvisation, creative expression, and mind body connection. Evelyn is available for booking, and currently accepting students for private lessons. Follow them on Instagram @elevyn__11
Evelyn Lazen
Autumn Jade
With a background in gymnastics and pole vaulting, Autumn-Jade discovered circus arts in college at Brown University. She performed lyra and partner acro before focusing her practice on rope and straps. She’s coming out of a performance hiatus and is excited to be back on stage among so many inspiring friends!
This act is an iteration, and its creation process has been a challenging exercise in time management and “killing your darlings!” (She’s not great at either but hopes you enjoy!)
Instagram: @aumj.aerial
Barbara Gentile
I’ve come to circus late in life, and even if I wish I started when I was younger, I’m so grateful
for being here now... it is almost hard to believe... maybe when I’m flying I’m just dreaming?
The music for this aerial pole piece is from composer Philip Glass, one of my favorites: he recently turned 89, an Aquarius like me. And even more recently he refused to debut his new opera at the Kennedy Center.
Resist!
Eckszooberanté
The Artist Extraordinaire Eckszooberanté AKA Zoob is a 100 year old Brooklyn based polymath specializing in questionable dance, circus, mind control, and queer exhibitionism. Zoob travels well, always smells delicious, never is not accepting sponsorship, AND is offering you a glimpse into the meaning of life, from his performance tonight…
(Optional);
u can follow him;
On his bike,
as he recklessly gallops into oblivion…
Or @Zoobtron
Olivia
Olivia Tavolacci is a New York City based straps artist who has been training since she was 9
years old. She attended Ecole Superieure des Arts du Cirque in Brussels, Belgium to continue
her education in circus. She trains, teaches, and performs in many spaces around the city and
is excited to present her new act tonight that is still a work in progress.
Instagram- @oliviatavolacci
Carmen Chan
Carmen (@flyingcarmsicle) is a Canadian dance trapeze artist. She started her movement practice on the lyra/hoop and pivoted to dance trapeze when she fell in love with the duality of the apparatus. Her blue corde lisse trapeze is called Barbara (Barb for short).
Emily Wang
Emily stumbled into her circus journey in 2021 when her climbing gym happened to have aerial silks classes. She now specializes in straps and rope. She loves being part of the CirqueHaus and Warrior Bridge community and is thrilled to share the stage with this wonderful cast.
IG: @emlywang
Gina Alm
Gina is a multi-disciplinary artist, teacher & performer based in NYC. She mostly works with dance pole, but she has performed aerial pole in nightlife and in circus festivals throughout NY and Europe. Most of her work is not commercial, so she designed tonight’s act to bolster her performer reel.
IG: @omginaaaaa