BLOOM: A Cirque Garden Masquerade

A professional dancer, aerialist, choreographer and instructor in Toronto, Elizabeth is the Artistic Director and founder of Artists’ Play School of Dance in Leslieville. Elizabeth has been featured as an aerialist with Hit & Run Dance Productions, Disney, La Rouge Entertainment, and Zero Gravity Circus. Elizabeth has created and performed many small works and produced four larger productions which premiered at festivals and showcases such as Series 8:08, Festival of Independent Dance Artists (fFida), Atlantic Fringe Festival, Toronto Fringe Festival 2008 and 2009, LABCAB Festival and her own productions, Artists’ Play…a Cabaret!. Elizabeth was trained classically at the Brandon School of Dance, The Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and was mentored by Arnold Spohr. After training in Jazz, Modern and Contemporary at JazzArt, Grant MacEwan and the Banff Center of Fine Arts, she graduated from the George Brown Dance Diploma Program where she studied under Ballet Jorgen. Elizabeth has toured England with Parahumans Dance Theatre, where she facilitated workshops for children in public schools. 

Eric is a dancer and acrobat with over twenty five years of experience in a range of practices which include breaking, contemporary dance, acrobatic circus arts (hand-to-hand, Icarian games, banquine, teeterboard), acro yoga, contact improv, and martial arts. He has competed trampolining competitively with Skyriders, is a two time world champion cheerleader with Team Canada, and is a part of the Deflying Feets Circus company.

After graduate school in philosophy, Eric transitioned to focusing more on the performing arts. Having started off in acrobatic sports and breakdance, his early love of tricks has broadened into an interest in more artistic performance that includes more character, narrative, and text. His movement practice tends to be collaborative and often mixes movement modalities and influences, and usually involves partnering or group acrobatics

Woody Fox is an Australian circus acrobat trained in Long, UK. His career in circus began after his in the UnderBelly circus festival that pushed him into various cabarets, cruise ship shows, and festivals. His specialties are within duos, including duo straps and hand to hand. Woody is known for his Golden Buzzer act on Canada’s Got Talent, performing dup straps and his performance in Cirque Du Demain on duo rope. He is part of the original Bloom! cast, which debuted in 2022.

Miranda Tempest (Tiffany Warden) has been a professional aerialist for over ten years. She founded the public circus program The Flying Arts Collective in 2013 and currently teaches at Artists Play Dance and Circus Centre in downtown Toronto. She's been an in-demand instructor at international events such as Pole Expo in Las Vegas, Aerial Expo in Iowa, and Campfire Retreat in Minneapolis. As an artist, Miranda is the director of Illuminair Entertainment, a contemporary circus troupe specializing is stylish, stylized performances. Illuminair has been featured across North America, including events like the 'Halloween Thriller' party in Fort McMurray, Alberta; Anime North-Canada's largest anime convention; and the notorious Theatre Bizarre in Detroit. Illuminair has recently finished their first ensemble production, ‘(Re)Composed’ which was given a Digital Now grant by the Canada Council for the Arts and debuted online in spring 2022. It was remounted in the spring of 2023 with the funding of the Toronto Arts Council. Miranda herself specializes in aerial hoop, cube, spanish web, and chains; as well as duo hoop, triple trapeze, and in-air group work in general. Her solo work often uses highly stylized costuming and ranges from showgirl fantasy to nightmare fodder.

After seeing a Spanish web performance at the age of 12, Heather dreamed of the circus. It took 30 years until she had the opportunity to learn to fly. At the age of 42, Simpson began to train at the Toronto School of Circus Arts. Her disciplines include Spanish web, straps, and aerial chains, the most painful of circus apparatuses. Since then, she has been performing in professional shows such as The Chaos Project on aerial rope with Hercinia Arts; various acts with Lunacy Cabaret; and Wonders of Winterland on duo aerial straps with AP Events. Heather has been a primary character in Bloom!, a magical romp in the garden. At the tender age of 71, Heather sees no end to her performance career and is a source of awe to the cast around her.

Joy, absurdity, and comedy are constants in Mary-Margaret’s work. She has been a professional aerialist for over ten years, focusing on static trapeze with skills on other apparatuses such as triple trapeze, trio cube, frame, and spanish web. She has worked with the majority of Toronto circus companies. This includes large successful shows like Cascades for Nuit Blanche, by Anandam Dancetheatre, which was ranked #2 best dance piece for 2014; Legends of Horror by Hit and Run Productions; (Re)Composed by Illuminair Entertainment, a reimagining of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons using aerial dance; BLOOM!; and the Starlight WishFoundation Gala.

Mary-Margaret’s signature act is HENRY, a googley-eyed alien. WIth a smile on her butt and googley eyes on her feet, she narrates a story and brings joy to the audience. During the pandemic, she expanded her repertoire and learned tap dance and mime. In addition to aerial, Mary-Margaret is a rigger. She teaches the Aerial Arts Foundational Rigging course, which has increased the safety of rigging in Toronto. She is the head rigger for The Mars Project, which melds tap dance and aerial.

Isadora Bello is a multidisciplinary circus artist from Brazil. She specializes in dance trapeze and partner acro. Isadora started performing in contemporary dance shows such as “Marias” and “Palavras” in 2018. The following year she performed her dance trapeze act and duo silks in “Suspenso” (Circocan, 2019). In Canada, she has been in local productions in Toronto such as BLOOM!, “The Chaos Project”, and various corporate events.

She studied aerial arts, flexibility and flying trapeze at Circocan - International School of Circus Arts in Florianopolis and is continuing her formation with ongoing sessions on hand to hand, dance trapeze and act creation with private coaches in Montreal. She is an adaptable and passionate artist, who believes different cultures empower the art scenario and bring diversity to the scene.

Julija Krisciunas is a 35 year old aerial dancer, singer, violinist, actress, and visual artist from Toronto. Her love of music led her to double major in Violin and Musical Theatre at the Etobicoke School of the Arts. She continued to pursue music by singing opera at the University of Toronto and then furthering her education in Musical Theatre Performance at St. Lawrence College. Her exploration of circus began in 2015 after completing a tour of a children’s theatre production (Big Kid Entertainment’s Cinderella’s Frog Prince) across Ontario. While she likes to spend most of her time dedicated to practicing, performing and coaching silks, Krisciunas has spent time on many different apparatus.

Krisciunas’s multifaceted career has led her to participate and lend her many talents to various productions. Some highlights include scaring audiences in Casa Loma’s Legends of Horrors (2019) as an aerialist and performing in Theatre Artaud’s Production of Grab em by the P*ssy at Theatre Passe Muraile (2017) which utilized her acting, singing, violin, juggling and aerial abilities. She has enjoyed many other memorable opportunities to perform in film, television, theatre, and circus companies including AP Events and Hericinia Arts Collective. Her latest act incorporates her talents as an opera singer, violinist and aerialist all at once in AP Events’ production of Wonders of Winterland.

Devonshire Crewe is a 24-year-old professional circus performer who graduated from the George Brown College dance program. Crewe has been a student performer for ten years, professionally performing for four years.
Crewe specializes in aerial rope and floor acro, but they take every opportunity to train and learn a plethora of different apparatus. They have mainly performed for AP Events and Illuminair Entertainment. This includes large events such as (Re)Composed, a circus ballet of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons; Bloom! (2022 and 2023); and Wonders of Winterland (2022, 2023, and 2024). They teach multiple circus and dance classes for Artists’ Play Dance and Circus school.

Hailing from Liverpool, UK, Craig Keeling’s has been part of shows that have toured through Egypt, and Switzerland to name a few. He has had various worldwide contracts, including performing at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. His skills are diverse, including acrobatics, aerials, acro balance, and fire performing. New to the Toronto circus community, he is entering with a splash, performing for Pride Toronto.