DANI BOBBI LEE
Dani stepped into the circus portal by the means of a hula hoop. Within that world, she found connection, control and a whole lot of patience for herself. Loving the way circus made her feel, she continued to build her circus toolbox over the years practicing aerials, poi, diabolo, juggling, clowning and partner acrobatics. Her philosophy in circus (and life) is to never stop learning and plans to be a student forever.
She began coaching with Air Temple in 2018 and came on as an owner in 2021. In 2020, she co-directed and performed in her first Air Temple show, Time After Time, and the year after she starred as Sarah Graves in Air Temple’s production, Heaven or California. She featured an aerial clowning act for the studio’s staff show, posing as a Martian who ingested human behavior in order to better understand them. Dani has a proclivity towards comedy and believes it is one the best ways to connect with others, on and off stage.
NICHOLAS STRANGE
Nick has been involved in circus arts of one kind or another for over a decade. He started riding unicycles as a way to cross train for freestyle skiing in high school, but was soon addicted to riding on one wheel just for the fun of it. Since then he has taken up juggling and prop manipulation, partner acrobatics, hoop diving, and Chinese pole as major areas of interest.
In addition to those traditional circus arts, Nick is an accomplished fire and sideshow performer. From 2009 – 2013 he was the head of Safety for Wildfire, a fire arts retreat. He studies Chinese pole at the New England Center for Circus Arts.
His past performance highlights include juggling alongside Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band, repeating (on location) a suspended straight jacket escape first performed by Harry Houdini, and entertaining audiences between sets at the World/Inferno Friendship Society’s annual Halloween shows, performing as one half of the circus duo Soviet Bloc Party, and performing in the full length shows Missed Connections, and SPECIAL RELATIVITY. In 2017 he went on tour with Circularity’s production of Sherlock Holmes and the Sapphire Night as one of the lead roles, and performed a partner acrobatics duet, hoop diving, and a solo on Chinese pole.
When not teaching or performing, Nick is putting his Mechanical Engineering expertise to good use as Air Temple’s resident rigger. He has been responsible for designing, building, and maintaining all of the points at all studio locations. In addition to studio work, Nick heads up rigging for Air Temple performances and is available for freelance rigging design.
STACEY STRANGE
Stacey Strange is a quintuple threat. A multidisciplinary circus, musical, and visual artist, she often combines art forms to create transportive entertainment rooted in meaningful storytelling. Her creations include aerial short films, touring circus productions, and the occasional novel. Her work has been called ‘As smart as it was entertaining—and it was very entertaining indeed.’ (The New Haven Independent)
She studied creative writing, classics, and film at Vassar College, tempered with four years in the school’s recreational circus club. She made it two whole months into graduate school in New York City before realizing she hated New York (she already knew this) and that she didn’t want to go into academia (she already knew this).
She swapped a closet-sized bedroom in Brooklyn for a blocks-long abandoned warehouse in Connecticut, and academia for studying aerial fabric primarily at the New England Center for Circus Arts. Though she’s never looked back, she has moved into a legally habitable dwelling.
She is the founder and creative director of Air Temple Arts in Connecticut, one of the largest circus studios in New England. A dedicated coach with over a decade of experience, she has taught myriad circus arts to hundreds of students across the United States. In 2018 she founded an aerial fabric teacher training program and expanded on the success of that program with a bar apparatus training in 2022.
Most recently she won a silver medal for her performance at the Hubei Chutian Star Guzheng Competition in China, which sees thousands of competitors. She has been featured on the national PBS show START-UP, had her photography published in the New York Times, and has the most expressive feet one YouTube commenter has ever seen.