At Kingston Circus Arts, we are trying to create a welcoming space to explore circus arts. We strive to welcome the Mad, Deaf, Disability, Neurodivergent, racialized and 2SLGBTQIA+ and all underrepresented communities.
We are a company dedicated to high level instruction and strive to welcome underrepresented communities in all that we offer. Our current curriculum focuses on aerial arts (fabric/silks, trapeze and aerial hoop, rope), partner acrobatics, handstands, flexibility and conditioning. We offer weekly classes, private lessons, workshops, and private parties.
We also offer professional performances including aerial arts, theatrical performances, acrobatics, flow arts, fire and more!
Erin Ball (ze/zir)
is a white, neurodivergent, double below knee amputee. Erin is a circus artist based near Katarokwi/Kingston, Ontario and the artistic director of Kingston Circus Arts. Erin achieved Disability membership in 2014 and took a year off. Ze then began the process of un-learning ableism and internalized ableism and its many intersections, as well as re-learning circus arts and delving into the world of creative accessibility. Erin created a course to strive to welcome the Mad, Deaf, Neurodivergent, Chronically Ill, and Disability community into the realm of circus (and movement-based) arts as artists, audiences, etc. Erin travels internationally to perform, teach, and collaborate. Erin has been a movement-based artist for 15 years, and has co-produced and co-choreographed shows with numerous artists and access providers.
Image description: Erin, a white demifemme and double below knee amputee, hangs high in the air with the biggest smile because ze is in her element. Erin’s fiery hair flows as ze dangles from white aerial fabric with clear white skies as a fun backdrop. The photographer was upside down when she took the photo and the perspective is disorienting. Erin’s silver and purple skin tight bodysuit shines in the sun.
Image description: Erin, a white femme and double below knee amputee, hangs high in the air with the biggest smile because she’s in her element. Her fiery hair flows as she dangles from white aerial fabric with clear white skies as a fun backdrop. She has just said a line (live!) about people who harass her and the audience laughed. Joy. The photographer was upside down when she took the photo and the perspective is disorienting. Erin’s silver and purple skin tight bodysuit shines in the sun.
Photo Credit: Virginia Maria Photography
Jasmine Woboditsch (she/her)
Jasmine Woboditsch, a white and Indigenous woman based in Katarokwi/Kingston, has been training with Kingston Circus Arts since 2016, and coaching since 2018. She loves coaching circus classes, and deeply values the inclusion and community that Kingston Circus Arts represents. Jasmine performs aerial arts and acrobatics and has a background in gymnastics and dance, and enjoys all things music!
Image Description: Jasmine hangs in the sky from an aerial hoop that is big enough for her body to fit inside. The photograph was taken upside down and the perception is disorienting. Her long hair hangs straight up because of the orientation.
Photo Credit: Virginia Maria Photography
Lavie Williams (she/her)
Lavie Williams is a Black woman with roots in the beautiful island of St Lucia. Proud mother to her 6 month old Calypso, Lavie has lived with her family on the unceded lands of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabee peoples for the past 7 years. Lavie is a practicing aerialist and part of the performance team at Kingston Circus Arts. Her long limbs, Afro hair and Black identity are all part of the space she occupies in the aerial world. Lavie is dedicated to pursuing necessary societal change through continuous learning, critical thinking, and of course direct action. Put simply, Lavie bases her work on challenging ‘neutral’ situations to fully recognize, affirm, center and most importantly, make space for those who experience marginalization. Lavie endeavours to collaborate with and empower our community to achieve substantive change and social transformation. Acknowledging the complexity and broadness of that goal, she notes it is apt to recognize that racism and other ideological systems of oppression, are in a sense ‘moving targets’. Which means there are no ‘one-size fits all’ approaches to deconstructing and then reconstructing our social realities.
Image Description: Lavie, a Black woman, hangs in the air, suspended from a large metal hoop. Her long limbs are extending and she has a huge smile that aerial arts brings to her face.
Rhapsody Blue (She/Her)
Rhapsody Blue is chronically ill with a license to thrill. This fire-eating, shimmy-shaking darling is a strip joint feature dancer, a circus entertainer, and a prolific emcee and producer. She has been performing burlesque since 2010. For five years, Rhapsody produced the weekly burlesque spectacular known as Burlesque Wednesdays.
She is the only artist, to date, to take her bra off on stage at Canada’s National Arts Centre.
Rhapsody sat on the board of directors of the Ottawa Burlesque Festival, serves as resident MC for Naked Boys Reading Ottawa, and has worked in theatrical choreography.
Rhapsody Blue has appeared at the NOLA Nerdlesque Festival, the Toronto Burlesque Festival, the Edmonton Burlesque Festival, the Ottawa Burlesque Festival, the Ottawa International Buskers Festival, and in 2018 was honoured to perform as featured talent in the Capital Burlesque Expo. Rhapsody is also a fetish educator and playwright. The Bombest Booty in the Book Club… it’s Rhapsody Blue!
Image Description: Rhapsody Blue, a white woman, onstage, sassy and bold, wears purples and black gloves, a large feather in her hair, and has a large shiny fabric in front of her.
Kathleen Ruck (she/her)
Kathleen has been training with silks, trapeze, and aerial hoop under Erin’s expertise since the Fall of 2010. Having been a member of the KCA Performance Team, she has enjoyed performing and coaching Intro and beyond intro classes on various apparatuses.
She has a strong appreciation of the benefits of aerial training on body strength and stamina as well as exercising the brain. She totally embraces KCA’s belief that ‘circus can be for everyone’.
Image description: Kathleen, a white woman with silver hair, hangs upside down in the air, wrapped in aerial fabric that is suspended from the ceiling. She is strong and loves being in the air.
Luca Tucker (he/him)
Luca is a trans man with autism. He’s been doing circus at Kingston Circus Arts for around 3 years now. Luca loves having something to do that has him being active, and he loves the feeling of being in the air in general. He values the accessibility of the classes and the people he’s worked with, especially how much they’ve been able to work with him and all of his anxiety.
Image Description: Luca, a white trans man, performs for the first time. He is suspended in the air, wrapped in fabric that hangs in a loop from the ceiling.
Photo Credit: Michael East Photography
Jane Kirby (she/her)
Jane is an aerialist specializing in vertical apparatus. She recently returned from an eight month tour of the Southern U.S. and B.C. as an aerialist with the Caravan Stage Company’s original production Nomadic Tempest. She began her circus training and performance career with Halifax Circus, has performed frequently across Ontario and Nova Scotia, and has trained with several top coaches in Montreal, Toronto and Vermont. She now mostly creates her own work, often in collaboration with her partner under the name Lowlit Aerial Arts (lowlitaerialarts.ca). Recent works include In Defense of Libraries (Nocturne Halifax 2016), Beneath Our Feet (Kick & Push Theatre Festival 2016) and echolocation (Skeleton Park Arts Festival 2015, In the Soil Arts Festival 2015, Contemporary Circus Arts Festival of Toronto 2014). Jane has been teaching aerial arts since 2011, and has completed Introductory Aerials and Foundation Level Trapeze and Fabric teacher training courses through the New England Centre for Circus Arts. When not in the air Jane is also a non-fiction writer, and published her first book in 2017. She is thrilled to be back teaching and training with the Kingston Circus Arts community!
Zack Hong (he/him)
Zack is a Choreographer and Instructor with international accolades. Zack began dancing and tumbling when he was just 5 years old. He has studied contemporary, lyrical, acro, jazz, modern, musical theatre, ballet, hip-hop, ballroom, tap, and aerial all over the world.
Throughout his dance career, Zack has won many awards and scholarships, and has continued to further his dance knowledge by completing additional workshops whenever possible. Zack has participated and taught workshops across Europe and North America. Zack also spent 2 years competing with the Kingston Elite level 4 national cheerleading team in Kingston, winning back to back national titles. He has won awards for choreography in multiple countries has experience teaching in a variety of settings, and was even recognized as coach of the year by the Brockville Soccer Association in 2014! Zack loves inspiring people to move and learn, and spends his free time volunteering and coaching whenever possible! Zack has experience teaching a wide variety of forms to people of all ages and started teaching when he was 15!
Zack has 7 years of aerial acrobatics experience, with training on multiple apparatuses. He began his aerial journey with a silks workshop in Montreal with some Cirque du Soleil performers, and immediately fell in love.
Image Description: A headshot of Zack Hong, a half white, half Asian, queer, non-disabled man who smiles at the camera.