Staff

Julian Salevan (they/them) has been an avid performer since they were a three-year-old tiptoeing through dance classes. They studied classical ballet and modern dance for the first half of their life, acted in their high school theatre productions, led their college’s Rocky Horror cast, and sang in choirs through college and grad school (even while studying physics and engineering for their PhD!).

A dabbler in athletics as well as arts, Julian has tried their hand at everything from distance running to powerlifting. They took their first aerial hoop class at Air Temple in 2019 – since then, they’ve tried nearly every other apparatus in the studio. After years of personal flexibility practice in service of dance and aerial, Julian also began training in contortion in early 2021, taking advantage of the explosion of online courses to train with instructors across the continent. With Air Temple, they’ve joined the casts of Heaven or California, Air Temple Takes New Haven, and Super Duper Pool Party, and they performed in their first (but not their last!) open stage show in autumn 2021.

Julian began teaching after completing Air Temple’s teacher training in 2021. They completed the SOAR Comprehensive Aerial Hoop Teacher Training program in September 2022, and they continue to pursue continuing education. They’re a total nerd when it comes to flexibility and movement arts, and they especially love to help students figure out how to work with their bodies rather than against them.

Teaching Specialties: Flexibility, Lyra

Liz's circus journey started with a curiosity about aerials silks after seeing cirque shows in Las Vegas. That is when she found Air Temple and started taking classes in aerial silks. Her love for circus only grew from there leading to classes in lyra, trapeze, rope, and most recently Chinese pole. She also performed a rope act for Air Temple Art's most recent show Reverie in Black & White. After about two years at Air Temple Liz started as a teacher's assistant and later progressed to teaching. Liz loves all things circus and always looks for new things to try and train.

"The circus had been unlike anything I could ever have imagined and I could not walk away. I wanted to be a part of the magic; create it and wield it with such skill that it looked effortless. I wanted to fly."
-Laura Lam Pantomime

After spending the first eighteen years of her life growing up on the edge of nowhere in Minnesota, Stacey packed her bags and headed east to attend Vassar College, where she majored in English and spent four years in the school’s recreational circus group, the Barefoot Monkeys.

She has performed up and down the east coast in performances ranging from street fairs to music videos. She specializes in aerial silks, solo and duo lyra and Spanish web.

In addition to performing and teaching, she has produced and directed several professional shows including Missed Connections, and SPECIAL RELATIVITY: Circus Through Space and Time, and Reverie in Black and White, and 2017's acclaimed touring production Sherlock Holmes and the Sapphire Night. She completed her Fabric Teacher Training in 2012 at NECCA. She opened Air Temple Arts in 2013.

In 2015 she was acknowledged as one of New Haven’s ‘Rising Stars’ by Busienss New Haven, and featured on the national PBS program START-UP.