Directors:
Nickolai Pirak’s interest in circus began in 2000 when he saw a German Wheel act in Cirque du Soleil. He moved to Germany in 2004 to study German Wheel, juggling and object manipulation. Upon returning to Seattle two years later, he discovered SANCA and began specializing in juggling and developing his act. He works as an independent performer and will be the new Director of the Youth Performance Company in February.

Erica Rubinstein studied neuroscience and dance at Oberlin College, but more importantly, college was where she discovered the wonderful world of circus. At Oberlin she co-founded a tumbling club, directed a childrens’ circus class, and performed in and helped organize OCircus productions. She has also competed in, judged and taught gymnastics. Now she is happy to have found SANCA where she teaches circus classes, assistant-directs the Youth Company, and is the Outreach Director. She also trains to be an all-around strong base and porter!

Charter Members:
Steven Mathews has the longest history with Y-co, having performed at the age of 8 in the first “Circo Vivo” show, back in 2005. Now 13, Steven began his circus career when he was only 5. Big sister and future Y-co founder Crystal tried to get Steven’s older brother to learn to walk on the rolling globe for a show she wanted to stage. When he balked, Steven said, “Can I try it?” By the end of the day, Steven was so comfortable on the globe he was jumping up and down on it. He performed in his sister’s shows from then on, and when Crystal came to SANCA, so did Steven. He still specializes in the rolling globe, but has added tumbling and object manipulation to his repertoire, and is working on further refining his juggling skills.  Steven’s favorite act was in the December 2008 Y-co show, his first big solo that he choreographed himself. In this act he was dressed as a waiter and performed object manipulation using a plate with cupcakes Velcro’d to it.  Steven says he likes that his performances please people. The best part of Y-Co, though, for Steven, is the friends he’s made.  When he’s not flipping himself or other things into the air, Steven likes playing Ultimate Frisbee and reading. He hopes to become a writer of fantasy fiction and plans to keep doing circus arts as a hobby “forever.”

Anna Partridge, 16, says she has loved being onstage since her first performance at SANCA when she was 11. “During my first performance I got tangled up in a fellow performer’s string,” Anna says. “As I frantically tried to detach myself, I looked up at the audience to see that they were laughing at the sight of an 11-year-old girl hopping around with her foot tied up. I began to laugh too. Suddenly it didn’t matter that I’d messed up. I fell in love with making people laugh.”  Anna says that she is very grateful for the opportunity Y-co has given her to be on stage, to connect with an audience, and to make people smile and laugh in excitement and astonishment. Last year Anna was accepted as a sophomore into the upper level theatre class at Mercer Island High School. She says of her successful audition, “SANCA gave me the confidence and support to pursue my dreams and never give up.” Anna is also a talented athlete but with all of her performances doesn’t have time for team sports. She says competing gives her an adrenaline rush, but “in performing, you never lose.” What she loves about Y-Co is “we’re not the typical kids. You can be yourself and be weird and that is ok in Y-co.” Anna hopes to attend a professional circus program after high school and hopefully make circus her career.

Magnus Giaever, 15  has developed a following as SANCA’s featured clown performer. Y-co founder Crystal Campbell discovered him when he showed up in her trampoline class for a make-up session. After the class, Crystal said to him, “You move really funny. Do you want to perform?” He joined Y-Co shortly thereafter. Magnus is a talented actor and been featured in a number of plays such as, Li’l Abner at the ACT Theater and several school productions. He loves circus arts, his first love being clowning, but other specialties are tight wire and trampoline. He also enjoys traveling, and cross country skiing.

Manny Eckert’s obsession with throwing things began at the age of 3, when he started throwing a Frisbee in the laundry room, over and over. He was7 when he was introduced him to SANCA by a friend who knew of Manny’s interest in juggling. Manny was thrilled to find a place where he could learn to be just like his two favorite jugglers, who he had seen on the internet. “I started taking classes at SANCA, but as hard as I tried at juggling, I couldn’t even do the most basic patterns. A year later, I still hadn’t made any progress. Then, SANCA started the “Youth Performance Company.” And however inept I was at juggling, I was invited to join because of my other talents in circus.” Most of the other troupe members could do a simple three-ball pattern, Manny remembers, yet after a year he still could not. Then he attended the International Juggling Association convention and humiliated to see lots of other kids who could do it. He says his humiliation made him practice perhis my pattern under control, he finally learned how to do a three-ball cascade. “After that, my confidence grew and I soon moved onto four balls. A couple months later, I was striving to learn five. And guess what? I learned!” Manny has grown to become one of the troupe’s best ball jugglers, now able to juggle seven balls. His other specialties are rolling globe and acro. Manny’s juggling and performing abilities were featured in the most recent Y-Co show, “Up in the Air.” Outside of SANCA, Manny plays on his school’s Ultimate Frisbee team and a rec soccer team, he plays drums, guitar and piano, and is a spelling bee champ who made it to regionals this year. His dream is to eventually join the circus Teatro ZinZanni.

Since 2007:
Eloise O’Leary, age 14, has been taking classes at SANCA since she was eight. She was first invited to SANCA by a friend and liked it so much she has come ever since.  Eloise’s specialties are tightwire, rolling globe and aerial. She is also a drama-lover who loves to quote lines from movies, has taken several drama camps, and performed in Broadway Bound’s production of Annie. Eloise likes that Y-co gives her so many opportunities to show people what she can do. The best part about Y-co, Eloise says, is that “we are all friends. There aren’t any cliques.”  When she isn’t practicing or performing, Eloise reads lots and lots of books, plays the clarinet, and enjoys expressing her wacky sense of humor.

Lyla Goldman, 12, has been coming to SANCA for four years and in Y-co for three. Although she considers herself reserved, you would never guess that when she is onstage performing one of her specialties: tightwire, rolling globe, aerial and unicycle. “I love the freedom of flying through the air,” Lyla says, “of climbing the fabric, and spinning on the hoop up in the air. Traveling by unicycle, walking on a wire. Doing the improbable, doing what I love, for an audience, is a wonderful experience.”   She particularly enjoys the sense of anticipation backstage before a show: all the hustle and bustle, the pep talks and quiet reassurances, peeking through the curtains once the show has started, working to remedy a mistake so that the audience will never realize it wasn’t done on purpose. She loves being  part of the group. “We’re friends who are like a family,” Lyla says of her fellow Y-co members. Lyla remembers when she first started at SANCA watching the aerial performers in amazement. “Now I can do those things myself,” she says.

Ian Nanney’s interest in circus arts started with a fierce desire to learn to juggle. He enrolled in a juggling class at SANCA in 2006 when he was nine, and learned so quickly that he was asked to perform in a juggling act with Manny Eckert, who was already in Y-co, before he had even had a chance to audition. Ian joined Y-co the following year and his skills have continued to grow—at this year’s SANCAthon he made over 1,000 catches of four clubs! Ian’s favorite performances have been the two appearances at the Math Olympiad in Shoreline. “We got such an amazing reception the first year that I was really looking forward to returning,” Ian said. “This year was even better. The same great reaction from the audience, but also, it was the first time ever on stage we’ve had a no-drop club act.” Ian’s other specialties are tightwire and rolling globe, and he is working hard on tumbling.  In addition to circus, Ian is an avid baseball fan, participates in numerous school and rec sports teams, and can bowl three times his weight—at 77 lbs, he bowled a 231 game.

Alyssa Nanney saw a Y-Co aerialist practicing at SANCA and knew immediately that was what she wanted to do.  She signed up for a class with SANCA’s Kat Podgorski, who has inspired legions of future aerialists, and found a new passion. Her father says that Alyssa is the kind of kid who does whatever she does to the fullest—she’s involved in debate, her school’s geometry and spelling bees, and never gives less than 100% to any school project. Aerial is no exception; her dedication has paid off such that she is one of Y-co’s leading aerialists. Alyssa also enjoys practicing on the trampoline and performing on the rolling globe. Her favorite acts so far are the double aerial acts she performed in the last two y-co shows, one with Sydney Petersen and one with Eloise O’Leary. Her father says that before SANCA Alyssa dabbled in a few sports but “SANCA is what has made Alyssa an athlete.”

Twins Ian and Alyssa both said their favorite thing about SANCA is the terrific instructors, who “make it fun all of the time.”

Emma Page’s first experience at SANCA was attending the performance on last day of a SANCA summer camp her brother was attending. She thought the rope and tightwire looked like a lot of fun, so she signed up for a summer camp herself. She began taking classes January of 2007, and by August was in Y-co. Before coming to SANCA Emma had dabbled in other athletic pursuits but nothing had interested her the way circus arts does.  Emma’s specialties are duo trapeze and tightwire, which she performs both solo and as a duo. Her dad says she’s “very motivated” about SANCA, having figured out how to get herself there by bus from school and becoming very efficient with balancing her practice schedule with her demanding homework load.  Emma acknowledges that being in Y-Co—and having to get the acts choreographed and ready in time for the shows-- has helped her learn how to prioritize. Not only that, her performance experience has “completely gotten rid of my stage fright,” Emma says. Her favorite act so far is the duo trapeze act she performed with fellow Y-Co member Jasmine Manuel in the recent SANCA Annual Spring Showcase. She was proud of how the act showed her improvement both in her skill level as well as her ability to work with a partner. This act was also different for her in that the choreography for it was inspired not by the characters, which was true in the past, but by the music, which she says greatly enhanced the visual aesthetic. Emma’s favorite part about Y-Co is getting to know people of different ages from all different schools, an experience she might not have otherwise had.

Since 2008:
Sydney Petersen has been coming to SANCA since she was 6. She tried gymnastics and soccer but when she found circus arts she knew she’d found her thing.  “I loved aerial—being up high was so exciting.” Sydney specializes in tightwire, rolling globe, 4-person acro, and aerial. In Y-co she loves that she gets to make up her own acts. Her favorite act is one called “That’s my bench,” a 4-person acro act from the most recent Y-co show, “Up in the Air.” It’s her favorite because it has a storyline with a lot of “character” in it, and included challenging skills with two of the company’s most experienced performers who were kind and encouraging. “Y-co feels a lot like a family,” Sydney says. “So I can be myself.”

Since 2009:
Dylan Forbes, 15, had been coming to SANCA for several years while concurrently playing on various school and rec sports teams, and participating in school plays. It wasn’t until his school did a PE unit at SANCA when he was in 7th grade and his classmates were amazed by what he could do, that he got the bug for performing with the circus, and he auditioned for Y-co the following year. Dylan loved the rolling globe and trampoline and tightwire from the start, but didn’t see himself as a juggler. Once in Y-co, however, he was inspired by Manny and Ian’s juggling skills and became determined be able to keep up with them.  Juggling is now one of his specialties, along with the rolling globe, and juggling ON the rolling globe is even more fun.  Dylan’s favorite act he’s been in so far is the rolling globe act for the SANCA Annual Spring Showcase. “It’s the most technically challenging globe act we’ve done,” he says. When Dylan is not at SANCA he is juggling or solving Rubik’s cubes or doing complicated things on computers. He also enjoys playing piano and drums and acting, and is on his school’s cross country, Nordic skiing and Ultimate Frisbee teams.

Emma Cady, 12,  says she was always a dramatic kid who was always moving; she loved to dance and talk in character voices.  Her mother says that when Emma was only 18 months old, she would swan-dive from a second-story window and had to be reminded to make sure her “catcher” was ready. Her parents knew at that early age she’d be in the circus someday.  Emma came to SANCA when she was 8. “When I started circus there were so many things I couldn’t do, and now I find myself doing amazing things, things that in the beginning seemed so hard and now they just come, sometimes without me even having to think about what I’m doing!”  She says that creating acts with other kids is a great experience, one that she doesn’t get to do so much otherwise since she is homeschooled. Emma says she joined Y-co to learn to perform and that she’s not only learning that, but she’s made some really amazing friends.

Anna Zuckerman loves the Youth Performance Company because it gives her something interesting and fun to do after school. It gives her a chance to relax before she does all her homework. Anna thinks all the other kids at the Youth Company are very nice and “do not treat me like a little kid, even though me and Lea are the youngest ones”.  “I love performing but in regular circus classes you don’t get to show off your skills to people, so it’s nice that in the Youth Company you can” she says.  Her favorite act was probably the globe act in the winter show “Up in the Air” because it was really fun and we all had to work together on it.  When she is not doing circus, Anna reads.  A lot.  She gets so absorbed in her books that she sometimes can’t hear people talking to her.  She has a pet parakeet named Jelly Bean and a new backyard trampoline.  She used to be on a swim team, but thought circus was more fun.  In school, Anna performed every year in her school play – her favorite play was “Annie” where she played an orphan.  She previously took piano lessons and can still play. “In the Youth Company, my fellow circus performers and I have acquired new skills. I especially like things such as rolling globe, unicycle and juggling. I’ve also made new friends.  It’s nice that I get to work with kids who are older than me.  I remember my very first show.  Backstage I was kind of nervous but then the show ended up turning out really great.”

Lea Zuckerman - The Youth Company has helped Lea learn new, interesting tricks. She especially likes to juggle. “I juggle anything and everything I can get my hands on”, says Lea.  The coaches are very encouraging and give me good ideas on how to improve.”  In addition t o juggling, Lea likes globes, and unicycle.  She hopes to add aerial to her list of circus skills too.  She loves walkabouts because” you get to make things up as you go along.”  “I remember when were at the Science Center walkabout and little kids kept trying to get on the globes while we were on them.  It’s fun to get to interact with the audience like that.”  “The other kids at YCO are very supportive and do not condescend to me at all even though me and Anna are the youngest and the smallest members”, says Lea.  She likes going to see professional shows too and thinking about doing that herself when she is older. When she is not doing circus, Lea loves to read.  Her favorites are science fiction.  She enjoyed acting in her school plays and the PE talent shows at her school. Lea wants to be a professional circus performer when she grows up.

Alumni

Jasmine Manuel started out taking one class a week in 2005 and learned so quickly that she was invited to join the performing group within 6 months. “My experience in circus has been watching normal people do amazing things with focus and discipline.”  Jasmine is able to do skills she never would have thought she’d be able to do back when she was 13 and dreaming of becoming a circus performer. Because she is 18 and graduated from high school this year, this will be her last summer with Y-Co. Jasmine is particularly proud of the solo tightwire act she debuted at the recent Spring Showcase.  “It was like my graduation act,” she says. “I was able to show how much I’ve grown since I’ve been at SANCA.”  Jasmine has frequently performed duo tightwire acts with fellow Y-co member Emma Page, her longtime collaborator on the tightwire. “Circus is a very deep part of my life,” Jasmine says. “My circus family doesn’t judge me. I can be myself.”  Jasmine will begin studying visual communications design at Seattle Pacific University in the fall, and plans to teach and train at SANCA while she is in college. Her goal is to work in visual communications for a circus company.