Aerial Open Stage

Bibi is a Malaysian aerialist from Johor who has been honing her craft for the past six years. As an aerialist, she defies gravity and dances with the wind. She loves becoming different personas through aerial choreography and enjoys using body language to convey her story to audiences. She competed in the Aerial Hammock professional category at the Bangkok Airstars aerial dance competition in 2019 and 2023. She is honoured to be performing in Aerial Open Stage (AOS) 2024.

Celeste is scared of water slides, cycling downhill, and climbing onto high surfaces, but somehow fell in love with aerial arts in 2018. Despite starting as an absolute beginner with no relevant background, she enjoyed gaining strength, progressing in skills, and learning new ways to move. It is easy to spot her in an aerial studio because she always wears blue, often seen training on her blue straps, blue rope, or blue silks. She also likes blue penguins.

Joyce is bored at life. Her futile unrequited love for ballet at a younger age left her pondering if frustration could mean anything at all. She attempted the aerial silks the first time in 2015 and felt that perhaps she could re-ignite her passion for life here—she has been entangled ever since. In the air, she particularly likes to play with the tensions of the fabric and trail motions with the flying tails. When not on the silks, she also dances with the flying pole, cyr wheel, silk fans, rope dart, and other props. In order to experience dynamics and the flow first hand from masters, she has travelled to Ireland, France, Mexico, Guatemala to further her studies. Joyce is a co-founder of a flow arts team and community circus space in Hong Kong. Besides teaching, performing, and cultivating the aerial arts and flow arts community, she also organises various circus events in Hong Kong.

Randall and Julian are partners and have been training together for the past year. While Randall is a seasoned performer and an aerial arts instructor, this is Julian’s first time performing in front of a public audience. After watching AOS in 2023, Julian joked about trying out this year thinking it would be a good milestone to mark his 50th birthday. Since then, Randall and Julian have been training together to make this dream a reality. Their partnership and participation in this showcase goes to show it’s not too late to get a start in aerial arts. They are thrilled to present one of Randall’s wacky ideas, a superhero-themed act that promises to be entertaining for both kids and adults. Keep a close eye and see if you can identify the villian in this act!

Journalist by day and yoga teacher by night, Samantha’s love for the aerial arts started when she was mesmerised by a silks performance at Esplanade’s inaugural AOS back in 2019. After dancing on various aerial apparatuses, she found herself especially drawn to the trapeze and the ways she could move on it. Five years later, having the opportunity to perform at AOS feels like a dream come full circle.

Sarah-Tabea is a filmmaker, artist, and social entrepreneur. She explores themes of belonging, agency, and ownership of one's life experiences across genre feature film, video artworks, photography, text, and aerial silk. She is the founder of the Singaporean social enterprise Biome Entertainment, a media and marketing company with a focus on social impact and empathy-driven strat comms innovation.

This pair met in dance, reconnected over their love for aerial, and they have never looked back ever since. Even after many years, Shirley and Mei Zheng continue to be intrigued and inspired by the elegance and movement possibilities of aerial arts. Known affectionately by their students as the #ShirMei duo, Shirley and Mei Zheng are known for their skills across apparatuses such as aerial rope, aerial silks, aerial hoop, sling and dance trapeze. As instructors and performers, they enjoy exploring and sharing this beautiful art form with everyone. This year for AOS, they will be presenting a duo rope act, a first of its kind here in Singapore!

Bornfire is a circus collective dedicated to bridging differences through the joy of circus in Singapore. Since its inception in 2006, Bornfire has partnered with arts groups locally and internationally to facilitate cross-disciplinary exchange between passionate practitioners of various art forms by hosting industry talks and panel discussions.