Meet the Team

Aleshia began managing Warehouse Circus in 2010 when it was a small community organisation of around 140 participants. Across the past fourteen years, Aleshia has enjoyed the challenge of helping to grow the company to provide circus to over 550 people per week in Canberra, while still retaining Warehouse’s community spirit and uniqueness.

Aleshia’s passion comes from knowing first-hand the impact youth arts can have on a young person’s life, their sense of belonging, self-esteem and love of life-long learning. When she’s not running a circus, Aleshia is busy with her two very own little circus performers and is the frontwoman of local original alternative rock band, Second Sun.  Photo credit: Andrew MacLean Photography 

Ben has been involved with the Performing Arts since 2008, when they started performing with their local theatre company. Since then they have performed and done backstage work in over 50 productions in Canberra and their hometown of Goulburn, including performing in the US for an international community theatre festival. Along the way they picked up some circus skills, mostly based around fire performance.

Ben has been at Warehouse Circus since 2017, when they took up the role of Finance Manager. In 2020, their role expanded to Business Manager. They are very passionate about circus and the performing arts, and the impact that the arts have on people’s lives.

Ashley grew up in Dubbo and did gymnastics for 6 years and then went on to became a qualified coach and judge in many areas of the sport. When she was 9 years old she started doing circus and specialised in stilt walking and acrobatics.

At the age of 13 she quit gymnastics to do more circus classes. When she was 19 she was offered a scholarship to study tumbling and coaching at the International Academy of Physical Education in Denmark doing performance tumbling and parkour and performed in the Olympic stadium in Berlin with the academy.

She moved to Canberra and joined Warehouse Circus in March 2018 and is now the Head of Training.

Originating from Albury’s Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Rosie has been with Warehouse as a trainer and our Operations and Events Manager since 2022. Rosie specialises in aerials, in particular lyra and cloud swing. 

Dan is an autistic circus educator with ADHD and a PDA profile, and currently serves as Head of Social Circus at Warehouse Circus. Over 14+ years he has taught disability programs and performance troupes across three youth circuses; collaborated with psychologists and OTs to deliver CBT-with-circus groups for anxious children; and studied psychology, occupational therapy, learning science, Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS), somatic approaches and polyvagal theory. His practice is neurodiversity-affirming, evidence-informed and unapologetically playful. After 39 years of learning “the different way,” Dan’s mission is simple: be the adult he needed—so every student experiences safety, belonging and genuine success.

Annabel has been in circus since she was 12 years old. Starting in the world renowned Flying Fruit Fly Circus, she has had a career spanning several decades that has taken her to work in all sorts of corners of the world with a huge variety of people. Over the last 15 years she has built and run a touring company based in the UK which has toured all over Europe and further afield, creating circus theatre shows using dynamic aerial and acrobatic apparatus and fitting them into all sorts of venues and contexts. Since 2016 she has co-founded a circus school in a 1000 year old Church in the UK and has become more and more interested in circus pedogogy and the effectiveness of circus as a tool for physical, artistic and personal expression, and personal growth.

Brett is a jack of all trades having trained in circus since 2009, performance science since 2008, and theatre and singing before that. Their circus training has included all manner of object manipulation (their favourites are juggling and poi), aerials (their favourites are aerial silks and spanish web), adagio, clowning, and german wheel. Brett completed a Cert IV in Circus Arts in 2017, specialising in chair handstands and group adagio juggling. They have performed comedy fire shows along the east coast from Geelong VIC to Maryborough QLD, launched their first solo science clown show ‘Curses to Newton’ in 2020 as part of the You Are Here Festival Cahoots program in Canberra, and enjoy making art with unusual combinations of skills like their trapeze juggling act, or art with very few skills like their act eating ice cream that they have dropped on the floor. Brett is enthusiastic about collaborative and multidisciplinary art, site specific performance art, and creative exploration of everyday objects.

Clare started circus classes with Warehouse in 2012, at age 8. Her specialities include juggling and group acro. 

Charlotte started with Warehouse Circus in 2016 as an entry level student. From there she worked her way through many classes and is now a member of Performance Troupe. Charlotte takes every opportunity to perform, performing at a range of venues around Canberra and surrounds, as well as recently at Adelaide Fringe Festival. Charlotte has been teaching for three years at Warehouse and intends to continue sharing her skills with all the wonderful students there.