2019 Florida Regional AYCO Festival, American Youth Circus Organization

Florida Regional AYCO Festival 2019

Sunday February 24th, 12-5pm

Hosted by Dance and Circus Arts of Tampa Bay

1490 N. Belcher Rd, Suite H, Clearwater, FL.

View the 2018 Florida AYCO Regional Festival schedule & directory.

Youth Member Rate: $55

Youth Non-Member $65

Sign Waiver Here!

All participants must sign the waiver.

You must be registered in order to sign up for workshops. Workshop sign-up is through a different site called Sched, and you must make a separate Sched account in order to sign up for workshops.

COACHING STAFF

Nicole Sirdoreus/ Aerial Arts
Nicole was one of those amazing toddlers who started dancing as soon as she was upright. She studied ballet, tap, jazz and flexibility, and went onto years of dance, which also included a stint with the Bolshoi Ballet.
Later, she discovered aerial arts and was immediately hooked. She began performing throughout the Southeast, including the Circo Espectacular de Mexico, where she was part of a duo hoop in 2016.
Nicole is medaled as well, having won the 2014
Southeast Aerial Art Competition and the 2017 Florida Pole Fitness Championship, both in lyra.
Currently, she teaches Aerial Arts at Anti Gravity in Orlando, FL. and continues professional appearances across the region.
We’re so lucky she had a day off to join us this year and share her expertise in Aerial Arts!

Sebastian Ferlo/Juggling
Sebastian Ferlo is a second generation circus performer who specializes in juggling and acrobatics. His parents met in Ringling Brothers Circus where his father was a clown and his mother was an aerialist.
He’s been training since the age of 8 and performed alongside his father and brother (who is cast as the main clown in the newest upcoming
Cirque de Soleil show in Las Vegas).
Sebastian worked at the Circus Smirkus Camp for the past 3 years and will be returning this coming summer where he is a camp counselor and juggling coach.
He is also a recent graduate of RIT in the Biological Sciences program and works as a Water Quality Chemist at Clearwater Marine Aquarium.
We’re thrilled that the Aquarium has brought him to the Tampa Bay area and look forward to him sharing his hip, playful and amazing juggling skills to our Festival this year!

Amanda Renaud
Stiltwalking & Handbalancing
Amanda made her grand stage debut with the 1965 Academy Award winning Rogers and Hammerstein classic, “So Long, Farewell,” in her three year old ballet recital and has been looking for excuses to perform in front of audiences ever since.
Dance, renaissance festivals, and theatre productions filled her childhood(once all of her homework was done, of course).
After acquiring her master’s degree in education and producing 30 shows per week for a captive audience of public school teenagers, she realized that there had to be something out there that would get more cheers
than theoretical geometry.
In pursuit of the elusive standing ovation, she has fire danced in the Bahamas, sword fought all over the state of Florida, mermaided in Michigan, and masqueraded as every bit Shakespeare role left vacant after casting.
She sewed endless costumes and even directed a couple of original shows before Lily reached out the hand of partnership and the Topsy Turvy Show was born.
Now, Amanda’s lifetime of festival experience and arsenal of stupid human tricks have a focused direction until she is too broken (or broke) to continue and will return once again to being responsible for the education and betterment of your impressionable youth.

Lianna Ashton
Hula Hoops & Foot Juggling
Lianna was brought up singing and doing ‘Risley’, where her dad, Michael Ashton, juggled her and her brother Miles on his feet starting when they were only 2 years old. At 3, she made her debut at Busch Gardens where she joined the act, the family tradition of Risley. She would soon go on to Circus Circus in Las Vegas and when only nine years old was offered center ring on Ringling Bros. Barnum & Baileys Greatest Show On Earth Tour. Growing up and traveling worldwide, as The Amazing Ashtons, she began to develop her own hula hoop show. That coupled with singing with her father in his nightclub act, they wouldn’t stay under the radar long. Soon, they would go on to appear on such shows as David Letterman, Jay Leno, The Steve Harvey Show, Regis and Kathy Lee, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Body Expo, Voted NBA top halftime act, and numerous benefits for the Kennedy family and their foundations. The crowning achievement for all these accomplishments for Lianna was in 2001 when she and her family, The Ashtons, were inducted into The Circus Ring Of Fame in Sarasota, Florida.
Lianna now resides in Clearwater, FL, teaching at Dance & Circus Arts and continuing her performing career. Many of you may have seen her last summer at Busch Gardens Summer Nights performing her hula hoop dancing!

Corey Cheval/Aerial Arts
Corey is the founder and director of the Gainesville Circus Center. With a background in contemporary dance and choreography, Corey began training circus arts at the Circo Picolino in Bahia, Brazil while working on a M.A. in Performance Studies at the Federal University of Bahia.
Corey completed a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology at the University of Florida in 2015. While completing her doctoral research, Corey founded S-Connection Aerial Arts circus school and AscenDance performance ensemble based in Gainesville, FL, which in 2018, evolved into the Gainesville Circus Center.
Corey specializes in aerial silks and trapeze, and teaches and performs a variety of dance & cirque apparatus including samba, equestrian vaulting and flying trapeze.
She has built her school with the mentorship of veteran circus artist, Lynn Polke.

Chip Haynes/Juggling
Chip brings his quirky and delightful personality to our Festival this year, engaging all who come within a mile of him.
He can juggle just about anything, and has been photographed keeping 2-bladed battle axes in the air without loosing any limbs.
He is an icon in the world of juggling and is very passionate about passing on this art form.
Chip is the 31st Lifetime Member of the International Juggling Association (started in 1947).

Maria Andersen/Aerial Hammock
Maria hails from the Tampa Bay area,
bringing art to high school students by day, and running away to the circus by night. She is trained in Trapeze, Aerial silks, Hoop, Spanish web and Hammock. Maria is a coach at Dance & Circus Arts and also a professional troupe member of Moving Arts of Tampa Bay. You can see her perform on the weekends at Casa Tina’s Mexican Restaurant in Dunedin, or at a fancy corporate event in a spectacular custom costume!