Meet the Team
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Michael Trautman (he/him)
BOARD DIRECTOR / COACH
Michael teaches juggling, movement, physical comedy, and directs MYC performances. He founded Maine Youth Circus alongside Janette Hough.
michael@maineyouthcircus.org
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Janette Hough (she/her)
BOARD DIRECTOR / COACH
Janette teaches aerials, with a focus in aerial dance, and occasionally teaches roller skating. She started the Breakwater Aerials program 12 years ago, and founded Maine Youth Circus alongside Michael Trautman.
janette@maineyouthcircus.org
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Janoah Bailin (ze/they)
BOARD MEMBER / COACH
Janoah teaches a variety of circus disciplines with Maine Youth Circus.
janoah@maineyouthcircus.org
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Brigid Rankowski (any pronouns)
BOARD MEMBER / SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER / COACH
Brigid teaches flow arts, and runs Maine Youth Circus’s social media. She also contributes to writing grants, which help fund our organization.
brigid@maineyouthcircus.org
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Andrew Silver (he/him)
BOARD MEMBER / COACH
Andrew teaches a variety of circus disciplines with Maine Youth Circus.
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Andi Saturn (they/them)
COACH
Andi teaches aerials with Maine Youth Circus.
andi@maineyouthcircus.org
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Raymond Diamond (he/him)
COACH / ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT
Raymond Diamond is a performing and teaching circus artist with Maine Youth Circus, with experience in handbalancing, juggling and bounce juggling, partner acrobatics and hand-to-hand, and Chinese Pole. Born in Louisiana and living in Maine, Raymond has experience teaching children and adults with a unique approach to learning and skill acquisition.
raymond@maineyouthcircus.org
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Amelia Papi (she/her)
COACH
Amelia is a biologist, performer, and coach for MYC. She is a lifelong tap and modern dancer who began her circus journey on the silks in 2015 with Janette. Since then she has found her favorite creative outlets in pole, lyra, and partner acrobatics.
amelia@maineyouthcircus.org
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Claudia Laguardia (she/her)
COACH
Claudia teaches aerials.
claudia@maineyouthcircus.org
Janoah Bailin
Board Member / Coach
Janoah Bailin (ze/zir), aka "janoah…anygoodjokes?" learned unicycling in the empty after-hour corridors of zir middle school. As a teenager, ze toured New England with the award-winning Circus Smirkus Big Top Tour. Janoah is now Assistant Director for the Gym Dandies Children’s Circus of Scarborough (ME), as well as a coach for the Children's Circus of Middletown (CT). In the summer of 2019 ze toured SpinS, a full-length solo circus-puppetry performance, across the Canadian Fringe Festival circuit, including Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver, winning "Best Variety" in London. In May of 2019 Janoah premiered meSSeS, a second full-length show (in which the audience learns to juggle during the performance!) with funding from the Maine Arts Commission (MAC) and New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA). meSSeS has toured from NYC to St. Louis, winning "Spirit of the Fringe"at the 2022 Elgin Fringe Festival. Janoah was recently awarded the 2020 MAC Fellowship in the Performing Arts, as well as NEFA's Public Art Learning Fund 2022. Ze is currently producing a third show with funding from MAC and the Puffin Foundation, and performing for New England festivals, stages and parades, leaving behind a wake of tumbled juggling props.
https://www.janoahanygoodjokes.com
Andrew Silver
Board Member / Coach
Andrew Silver is an international circus variety artist who grew up in Southern Maine. Andrew began his entertainment career as a “theater kid,” performing in a multitude of plays throughout Maine with Portland Players, The Lyric Theater, and Maine State Music Theater. After college Andrew began training at a local circus school and started his career as a solo variety entertainer.
Over the years, Andrew has worked countless hours perfecting his natural ability in juggling and mime, he’s become one of Maine’s top performers in the craft of magic, and he’s gone on to become a trained mentalist and a skilled showman in the subtle art of physical comedy.
He has performed in the national touring show Summoning Spirits by Peter Boie, Performed overseas in Steampunk Circus and others on Aida Cruise Lines, and performs his own one-man variety circus show, The Silver Circus.
www.AndrewSilver.comhttps://www.janoahanygoodjokes.com
Janette Hough
Board Director / Coach
Janette Hough directs Apparatus Dance Theater, runs the collaborative artspace Apparatus22, and has collaborated as a co-director of Anomalous Theatre Company.
Janette has taught throughout the U.S. as an independent aerial dance choreographer with University theater productions and developed the afterschool enrichment aerial dance program at the Breakwater School in Portland, ME.
Janette has performed with Pig Iron Theatre, Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental, Sebastienne Mundheim, Dr. Meghan Brodie, and Theatre Cirque, among many others. Her choreographic works The Weightless Moment (for Tedx Dirigo), Pale, Suitor, and La Reve de Augustine with Anomalous Theatre Co have been performed in various local and national venues. She started as a company member of Louise Gillette's Trapezius! Aerial Dance in 1993. Terry Sendgraff taught her the art of Motivity. Her teachers have also included Nancy Smith of Frequent Flyers and Serenity Smith-Forchion and Elsie Smith of NECCA. Janette also has certifications in Yoga, Aerial Yoga, Pilates Mat and Reiki.
https://www.apparatusdancetheater.org/
Raymond Diamond
Coach
Raymond Diamond is a circus artist currently located in Portland, Maine in the United States. His circus disciplines include Chinese Pole, Partner Acrobatics, Handbalancing, and Bounce Juggling. He has trained in professional preparatory programs throughout the country including at the Sellam Circus School in Biddeford, Maine, at Esh Circus Arts in Somerville, Massachusetts, with MOTH Contemporary Circus Center in Denver, Colorado, and at GymFit BR in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Raymond is a hand-to-hand flier, a middle, and aspires to work as a member of acrobatic ensemble companies. Originally from Louisiana, the circus has flipped and turned Raymond's life upside down, literally and figuratively, and there is nothing that has supplied such a source of consistent excitement during his time on the planet. Raymond is infatuated with the idea of making art through the medium of his body and through circus and is ready and available to work immediately.
Outside of Raymond's professional circus career, he is a professional writer, working through venues of opinion newspaper column writing, journalism and written news reporting, and essay/academic writing.
Andi Saturn
Coach
Andi discovered their love for aerial dance in 2017 while working on a university show with one of MYC's founders, Janette Hough and Anomalous Co founder, Kathryn Syssoyeva. During their time at school, they found their passion lay in collaborative devised theater due to its versatility and opportunities for creative exploration into other performing arts communities like circus and dance. Participating in devised theater led them to an internship in London in the summer of 2017, a research trip to both sides of the Tijuana/San Diego border in 2018, and a residency in Portland, Maine, with AnomalousCo in the summer of 2019 culminating in a performance at the Providence Fringe Fest. After completing their BS in Theatre at Utah Tech University, they went on to found their own theater company: tuff boyz! Theatre Co, producing two shows in southern Utah before making the choice to move to Portland. They're currently employed as an aerial dance teacher through MYC and spend their free time working on craft projects and collaborating with friends. They're looking forward to exploring more of the Portland arts community and meeting new people to collaborate with! Check them out on Instagram at @andisaturnarts.
Photo Credit: Poetic Puffin
Brigid Sinclair
Board Member
Brigid Sinclair (Any Pronoun) is a powerful mystical fae creature both on land and in water. They are an artist, educator, and advocate living in Maine. Brigid participates on state and national disability boards, as well as working with several research groups addressing intersectional topics, such as healthcare barriers and suicide prevention. More than half of her life has been spent in the autism advocacy field and has been heavily involved as a content creator with the major autism organizations of Autism Speaks, Autism Society of America and its affiliates, and the Autism Women and Nonbinary Network. They contributed a chapter to the award winning publication “Sincerely, Your Autistic Child: What People on the Autism Spectrum Wish Their Parents Knew About Growing Up, Acceptance, and Identity”. Most recently, they were one of the main writers for Autism Speaks’s “Adult Autism Diagnosis Tool Kit: A guide for identifying autism in adults and figuring out what comes next” geared towards adults who are newly diagnosed as autistic or who may be questioning if they are on the autism spectrum. They were the recipient of the 2018 Outstanding Commitment to Autism Advocacy Award from Autism Society of Maine for their work in the state of Maine.
As an autistic person, they have always been drawn to the performance world as a way to express themselves in creative ways. Almost a decade ago, Brigid began working with the spinning arts and is now a licensed fire professional in multiple states with a passion for promoting the spinning arts for everyone. They also founded a nonprofit called The Way We Move which existed from 2018 to 2023 to spread the spinning arts to marginalized communities. Brigid continues to remain impassioned about making circus arts available to everyone. In 2018, they trained with Cirque Du Mondé, the social circus program created by Cirque Du Soleil. Outside of Raymond's professional circus career, he is a professional writer, working through venues of opinion newspaper column writing, journalism and written news reporting, and essay/academic writing.
Claudia Laguardia
Coach
Claudia Laguardia has been flying around on trapezes and lyras for 15 years, fire dancing for about that long, and performing theater and singing since she could speak. As well as performing as a practicing artist throughout New England and Central America, she currently dances with Cosmic Creation Dance out of Norway, Maine performing hour-long choreographed aerial, fire, and bellydance shows for dance galas, town events, and festivals. Lately she has been teaching children aerial arts at Breakwater, and aiding in the Maine Youth Circus as-needed. She loves seeing her son enjoy himself flying around on the trapeze.
Amelia Papi
Coach
Amelia Papi (she/her) is a biologist by day and an aerial dance instructor for Maine Youth Circus by night! She is a lifelong tap and modern dancer who began her circus journey on the aerial silks in 2015 while working on her high school’s production of “Pippin” under the instruction of MYC’s Janette Hough. While away at college, she discovered her favorite creative outlets in dance and Chinese pole, Lyra, and partner acrobatics through training at Paradigm Pole Fitness and Commonwealth Circus Center.
Recent and upcoming performances include Neveah Dance Circus’ “Dark Side of Somewhere”, Studio X’s “Grimm”, and Envision Berwick’s “Bring Your Lawn Chairs to Sullivan Square”.