The IJA Festival is excited to be welcoming these Special Guest performers in the Cascade of Stars. The list of performers will be updated as performers are booked. We look forward to seeing you in the comments!
Jonathan Burns – Emcee
Born with the gifts of flexibility, curiosity, and goofiness, Jonathan Burns now uses these unique talents to astonish audiences around the globe. Over the course of his career, Jonathan has appeared on America’s Got Talent, The Late Late Show with James Corden, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, and Many More! He’s been dubbed “Extremely funny” by The New York Times, and was named “Variety Artist of the Year” by Campus Activities Magazine, TWICE! When he’s not performing he can usually be found in an airport terminal or spending time with his beautiful family.
Grace Good
Snoop Dog says she’s “bringing the heat!” Go-Big show producers call her the “daredevil cirque performer.” And Thrive Global calls her the “fire-eating, free-falling, record-breaking, hula-hooping … girl next door … .” Grace Good is a self-taught performer who followed her dreams and ran away from college to join the circus—and she’s never looked back. She’s toured internationally with Cirque Dreams and appeared nationally on multiple TV networks. Her fiery videos often go viral on social media, where she has more than 2 million followers on TikTok alone. Catch one of her live performances in Vegas or Nashville, and for upcoming tour dates, visit GraceGoodCirque.com or follow her on her social media!
Komei Aoki
In 2001, Komei Aoki was influenced by a friend and got into the world of juggling. From a very early stage, he adopted a very distinctive and original style and participated in several contests in Japan and America. In 2005, he came in 2nd in the IJA Juniors Championships. In 2008, Komei invented a completely new style of juggling known as “Daggle”, which is the mix of dance style “Popping” with juggling, and won the Japan Juggling Festival championship. In 2017, he was the Taiwan TING-KOO-KI JUGGLING BATTLE Champion.
UniCircle Flow
UniCircle Flow is a unicycle artistic dance performing group, founded in 2021 by gathering world top-level unicycle athletes / performers in Japan. Its unicycle dance style was born in Japan 40 years ago and has been developing mainly in Japan. It’s likened to “figure-skating on land”. Japanese style of unicycle dance performance is beautiful, elegant and still dynamic and highly evaluated in the world.
Marta Paley
Marta Paley was a ballet dancer but then moved into circus because of her love for juggling. The act combines her ballet experience, cigar box juggling and her nature comedy character. Marta has worked on Cruise ships, and in the Philippines, USA and Germany.
Ethan Brain
Ethan Brain is a Guinness World Record holding juggler based out of Apex, North Carolina. As a graphic design student and surrealist, Ethan enjoys creating juggling performances that push the boundaries of reality, fully embracing poetic ambiguity and expression. The world is filled with beautiful and horrific abstractions and Ethan’s stylistic interpretations speak a hidden truth.
Yennega Circus
Yennega Circus is a professional company based in Burkina Faso, Africa. They specifically focus on combining modern circus with traditional Burkinabé music and dance. The company was created by Armand Ouendlamita and Erin Stephens with the aim of promoting the diversity of cultures and human equality, and professionalizing circus arts in Burkina Faso. They will be presenting their group ball routine, which is an excerpt from their 1-hour full length show titled “Jonglemania”, or “Jugglemania” in English.
Filip Zahradnický
Filip Zahradnický is Czech circus artist and juggler. He studied at The Academy of Modern Circus in Copenhagen, Denmark. He presented his graduation act “VERMILION” at Festival Mondial du Cirque De Demain and won two awards. As a member of Cirk La Putyka, he perfomed at the Chämaleon Theater and at several other venues with different shows. Currently he is recognized for his new solo show “Collection of Sceptical Pleasures”.
Learn more on www.ringjuggling.com.
Hiroto Sunahara
Hiroto Sunahara is a juggler based in Japan. He is good at “vertax”, especially two diabolos vertax. He won 2nd place in the Osaka International Diabolo Competition 2019 in the 2 diabolo bearing axle division, 1st place in the Japan Juggling Online Stage 2020 Men’s Individual, and 1st place in the All Japan Diabolo Competition 2021 2 diabolo bearing axle division.
Guillem
Guillermo Rodriguez was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. During one boring evening, with a good friend, they made three improvised paper balls and started to play. Without being aware that this evening was going to change their lives. Since then, Guillermo started to travel around Spain, performing and giving lessons in rural areas. Working together with the Cultural Association Ajo Negro from Segovia. Guillermo is a member of the AVC (Valencia’s Circus Association), where he lives and where he filmed the act that was especially made for the IJA 2021 Virtual Festival.
Noel Yee
One of the most important figures of the modern flow arts scene, Noel Yee has had a strong hand in the evolution of flow arts culture and brings a unique understanding of object manipulation to the table. With thousands of students over his eleven years of training, you can’t go wrong with a class from Noel. In addition to his performing career and quality instruction, Noel is part owner and founder of many notable events, performance troops and flow arts companies including Flow Arts Institute, FireDrums, Kinetic Fire, Vulcan Crew, Foreways Project, Vulcan DVDs, Give Props Documentary, is the director of the Flow Show Project and has served as a board member for the International Juggling Association. If it’s insight into the flow arts mindset and culture you seek, or just want to grow your skills and techniques, take a lesson from a seasoned pro.
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