Aerial Open Stage

Bornfire is a circus collective dedicated to bridging differences through the joy of circus in Singapore. Since its inception in 2006, Bornfire has partnered with arts groups locally and internationally to facilitate cross-disciplinary exchange between passionate practitioners of various art forms by hosting industry talks and panel discussions.

Amitabha Hannah Spires, who prefers to go by Hannah, is a 10-year-old aerialist with Australian and Thai heritage. Her nickname, "Cuddlepie", inspired by the classic Australian book series Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, reflects her lifelong love for imagination. Growing up between two cultures has given her a unique perspective and a deep appreciation for diversity. When she is not training, Hannah enjoys rock climbing and camping in nature. Her true passion however, is aerial circus arts. For the past three years, she has dedicated herself to training six days a week in hoop, hammock and silk—developing discipline, perseverance and creativity. Her hard work recently earned her first place in hoop and hammock and third place in silk at the AIR STARS International Competition in Thailand, an achievement that continues to inspire her love for performance.

Hannah’s performance captures a stage of life before it fully understands itself—where the body becomes a place of learning rather than achievement. Movements are approached just as life is: with curiosity and openness. In quiet moments, she reflects on the first recognition of self, guided by sensation rather than the outcome—a reminder of one’s self before the expectations and pressures of the world took hold.

Angeline and Zheng Hao have been practising duo lyra on and off for the past seven years. They draw inspiration from their everyday lives, creating acts based on ordinary experiences. For instance, their 2023 act was inspired by a caterpillar they found in a cabbage, while their 2022 act was inspired by their cats. Both Angeline and Zheng Hao believe art is essential to help make sense of the world—something uniquely human that AI cannot replicate.

After a three-year hiatus, the duo returns with a new act inspired by the European folk story, Stone Soup. Two travellers, hungry from their journey and with nothing on their backs, start a stone soup by boiling water and stones in a pot over a fire. As the soup cooks, villagers come by and share their own ingredients. In no time, the meagre pot of soup turns into a nutritious, tasty stew, big enough to feed an entire village!

Through this performance, Angeline and Zheng Hao hope to highlight the magic of community effort. Even those with little to offer can spark something meaningful when supported by others. Every contribution—big or small—matters, and everyone enjoys the collective result. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts!

Scott is an aerial artist from Thailand. His journey began 12 years ago, as a student stepping into the studio with curiosity and determination. What started as training gradually became a lifelong practice—one that shaped not only his body, but his way of thinking, feeling and living. Over time, Scott was given the opportunity to teach and pass on what he had learned. Sharing aerial arts with others became a meaningful extension of his growth. Yet, his path has never been about reaching a final destination. There has never been a sense of completion—only continuous evolution. Today, aerial arts remains his language of expression. Through movement in the air, he draws lines across space, expressing strength, vulnerability and experience. His practice is not about perfection, but about presence—a journey that continues to unfold with every performance.

His performance, Becoming, explores a stage of life when identity begins to form through tension, desire and inner conflict. It reflects a moment of growing awareness—of the pressure, roles and gaze of society—yet without certainty about what to accept or resist. Becoming is not a destination, but a continuous negotiation between the inner self and the expectations of the world. The aerial silks become a space of aspiration. Climbing, wrapping and suspending the body reflect ambition and the pursuit of clarity. Yet moments of imbalance and hesitation reveal vulnerability beneath that confidence. Throughout the performance, movement shifts between strength and softness, ascent and suspension. Becoming does not resolve these contradictions; it allows them to coexist between control and surrender, certainty and doubt—marking the transition from unconscious growth toward self-awareness.

Cheryl Charli is a Singapore-based circus arts practitioner. She mainly trains on the chains and the lyra, and has been practising since 2018. As a theatre and visual artist, Cheryl brings circus arts into a larger dialogical artistic landscape rooted in curiosity, conceptual inquiry and a fascination with worldhood and ways of being.

Cheryl’s solo aerial chains act will interrogate the undercurrent of hope, juxtaposed with the unforgiving, industrial, cold, cruelty of the world and the attempt to endure it. This act explores what it means for grace to exist—not in opposition to pain, but alongside it. How it is practised, learned, refined and held deliberately in the body. Much like how one carry themselves in an ever-changing and metamodern world that is constantly being redefined.

Cynthia is an aspiring aerialist who discovered the lyra during the pandemic and fell in love with the freedom and strength that aerial art made her feel. She pursued her newfound passion alongside her studies, training in Singapore and Melbourne, and currently juggles her lyra training with a professional career in law. As a lifelong musician and dancer, Cynthia is a firm believer in art as a cornerstone of the human condition and strives to express her most authentic self through performance.

Cynthia’s solo lyra piece will explore the freedom and excitement of adulthood, alongside the quiet fear of youth slipping away. What is adulthood but a sobering realisation of the unyielding passage of time? As one matures, age is not just seen, it is felt—in the murmuring of joints which once moved with ease, deteriorating memories and the ebb and flow of relationships. Life feels like an exhilarating whirlwind, interspersed by brief reminders of battles already lost to time: pictures of old friends who have grown distant and relics of past selves, long abandoned. This performance serves as a reminder to be mindful of the seconds passing by, and to hold each authentic self and loved one close, before time and age overtake them all.

Debbie is a passionate aerialist whose journey began in 2014 with a simple curiosity that quickly blossomed into a lifelong love for aerial arts. Captivated by the beautiful fusion of dance, acrobatics, strength and storytelling, she discovered not just an art form, but a powerful medium to express courage and creativity.

Over the years, Debbie has performed and competed in various showcases and competitions, continually challenging herself to grow beyond her limits. As the lead coach and founder of an aerial studio in Malaysia, Debbie is dedicated to empowering others to rise—both physically and personally. She believes aerial is more than movement in the air; it is about building confidence, resilience and self-belief. Through supportive and structured training, she strives to inspire her students and cultivate a vibrant aerial community, while continuing to evolve both as an artist and mentor.

Debbie’s aerial hammock piece explores life as a journey shaped not by circumstance, but by perspective. Her performance begins in a place of frustration and overwhelm, reflecting moments when life feels heavy, isolating and emotionally demanding. Judgement, exclusion and bullying become invisible weights, pressing the body inward and making each movement feel cautious and restrained.

Through aerial hammock, this act tells this story: life may be a journey filled with weight, but self-love and trust can reshape how that weight is borne. 

Megan began her movement journey at the age of five and has not stopped since. Her lifelong passion for dance naturally evolved into an exploration of aerial arts—the dynamic interplay of strength and grace in the air. Currently based in Macau, Megan performs as an aerialist at House of Dancing Water, one of the world's largest and most iconic water-based stage productions. The performance demands a high level of versatility, precision and artistry, allowing her to hone her craft on an international stage. While her career has taken her overseas, Megan remains deeply connected to the Singapore aerial community and is thrilled to be back home to share her art at Aerial Open Stage. Her solo lyra performance, The Spaces Between, explores themes of uncertainty, courage and the art of letting go.

Megan spent a long time inside the lines. School. Work. The right choices. The safe path. Do this, then that, and everything would be okay. She believed it. She played by the rules, and the rules worked. They kept her steady. They kept her safe. At first, the lyra was the same thing. A clean circle. Predictable moves. Hold here, hook there, spin, release, land—a structure she understood. There was comfort in knowing exactly what came next. But somewhere along the way, safe stopped feeling like enough.

It started small. A moment of stillness where she noticed the space beyond the rim and what the air just outside the circle could provide. What was out there? What would happen if she stopped clinging to the structure and started moving through the space instead of staying inside it? This was not about abandoning the structure. It was about expanding what the structure made possible. The circle still holds—but now it also releases.

The Spaces Between reflects the revelation that the lines of the hoop were never meant to keep Megan in; they were meant to show her where she could go. It is about trusting the swing and leaning into the unknown—choosing exploration over certainty and discovering, mid-air, the relief of finally letting go. This piece is not about arriving anywhere perfect. It is about the courage to leave the circle, even without certainty of land. It is about the hope that the space between—the unknown, the unplanned, the messy middle—might actually be where one learns to fly.

The love for self-expression and thrill is what brought Samantha to her first aerial class more than five years ago and she has been hooked ever since. Journalist by day, her dance training first started with ballet and later in her university days, competitive Latin dancesport. She is also a YTT200 yoga teacher with over eight years of experience under her belt. As an aerialist-in-training and instructor, she spends most of her time on hoop and trapeze.

Samantha’s poignant contemporary dance trapeze piece explores the idea of growing up and reconnecting with one’s inner child. At the start, the trapeze, swaying freely like a wing, symbolises play and companionship. Her movements mirror the trapeze as she dances along. As an only child, she finds joy in her imaginary friends, reflecting both who she is and everything she is becoming. Later, the ropes cradle her, the same way she cradles herself through heartache and life’s challenges. Adulthood comes with its triggers and pains, but she soon learns to unknot her unresolved emotions. As she releases herself from the ropes, she rekindles her self-love and realises that the strength she has been seeking has always been within her. Dancing more freely, she meets her inner child again—the little girl who once felt small in her ballet classes now performs with courage on a larger stage, and the trapeze that once was a swing, becomes a way for her to take flight.

Sarah-Tabea Sammel, or ST for short, uses narrative craft to unite art and business. An award-winning filmmaker featured and sponsored by Sony with recognition across global film markets, ST is the founder of Biome Entertainment and creator of The Subconscious Narrative™, an enterprise advisory method featured on Nasdaq Trade Talks that helps organisations align strategy, culture and brand perception through a social sustainability lens. Originally from Germany and based in Singapore for ten years, her work spans film and television, interdisciplinary arts, higher education teaching at NUS and multinational advisory. She approaches aerial straps as kinetic storytelling, exploring the same themes of identity, agency and belonging that drive her films and consulting work.

ST’s solo aerial straps performance, Writer’s Block Isn’t Real, explores the universal experience of a creative block and the body's intelligence when the mind gets stuck. A writer sits at her desk, but the flow stops. The physical constraint of sitting in front of the page traps her in a strange state between possibility and limitation. What begins as analytical frustration transforms into a physical negotiation of constraint and freedom, ground and air, thinking and doing. Discomfort builds. For the writer, the chair, once a static object, shifts from a productivity tool to an obstacle she must overcome. Rising from the seat, she enters into a vertical dialogue with the aerial straps, where the body speaks what words cannot.

Bibi is a Malaysian aerialist specialising in aerial hoop, spinning hammock and contemporary aerial performance. Known for her dynamic strength, fluid musicality and expressive artistry, she seamlessly blends technical precision with powerful storytelling in the air. Beyond performing, she is deeply passionate about coaching and mentoring students, guiding them to build strong foundations, confidence and refined performance quality.

Bibi’s aerial hoop act tells the familiar story of a clown—someone who smiles for others, even while shouldering emotional burdens that cannot be shared. The work reflects a common adult experience: the need to remain strong and positive in public while carrying unseen pressures. Like a clown, flashing a smile becomes a way to cope, persevere and quietly protect both oneself and others. The aerial hoop itself embodies structure and routine. It supports and elevates the performer, yet also confines their movement within a fixed circle, mirroring the balance between responsibility and personal freedom.

Designed for audiences of all ages, Bibi’s performance invites viewers to recognise themselves in the character, empathise with the hidden effort behind a smile, and to acknowledge the quiet strength it takes to keep going with grace.

Shirley Wong

Shirley is one of Singapore’s leading aerialists, renowned for her dynamic presence and unique artistic voice. Originally trained in contemporary dance at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, she discovered her passion for aerial arts in 2012. With more than a decade of experience, her work spans aerial rope, silks and multicorde, masterfully blending contemporary dance with circus to create visually striking and emotionally resonant performances. As a full-time aerialist, Shirley has performed and taught internationally across Asia, Europe and Mexico. Driven by a profound love for performance and a commitment to authentic, compelling storytelling in the air, Shirley is the guest choreographer for this year's Aerial Open Stage group act.

Nicole

Nicole spent many years exploring a range of dance genres, from ballet to ballroom, and performing and competing at events and venues both locally and overseas. She discovered and fell in love with aerial arts in 2012 and has since performed aerial silks and aerial hoop for various local events.

Sarah-J

Sarah-J started pole in 2016 when she was looking for a new and interesting way to work out. She later dabbled in aerial arts before falling for the dynamic energy of rope in 2022. Her style of movement revolves around flexed feet, comfy pants and flingy things. Through her work, she hopes to convey her immense love of movement and the joy of existing in one’s body.

Gregory

Gregory Gan is a former national gymnast with 13 years of competitive experience, which led to a 19-year coaching career, with the last decade dedicated to teaching hand balancing and mobility. Over the past eight years, he has refined his personal practice in the disciplines of hand balancing, contortion and aerial. In 2019, Gregory transitioned to the air, training extensively on hoop, straps and rope. This performance marks his debut aerial performance—a significant milestone that blends decades of ground-based precision with a new chapter in aerial movement.

Choreographed by Shirley Wong, and performed by Nicole, Sarah-J and Gregory Gan.