Charlotte Hofer

Country: Switzerland 
Specialisation: Dance-Trapeze 
Coach: Noemie Wagner 
Email:  charlottehofer@icloud.com 
Insta: @chat_/ @charlottehofer_photography  

Biography:
Charlotte Hofer is a Swiss circus artist based in Rotterdam, specialising in trapeze dance and physical theatre. Her work explores vulnerability and emotional depth through intuitive movement and improvisation, creating performances that feel both authentic and daring. She blends circus with theatre, clowning, and visual arts, driven by a deep curiosity about expression across disciplines.

Charlotte studied at Ton sur Ton and Le Zarticirque, and shares her passion by teaching circus at various schools. She also holds a degree in Interactive Media Design, bringing a unique visual sensitivity to her work. As a photographer and designer, she collaborates with artists and companies such as Nebia, merging her artistic worlds. Whether in the air or behind the lens, she seeks to explore new forms of expression and foster meaningful connections with audiences.

Performance description
Title: The Sun Will Come Up
In the air, Charlotte Hofer invites us on an intimate journey of release from discomfort. Suspended between longing and uncertainty, her body wavers, searching for balance. The trapeze is both anchor and companion — tender yet unforgiving. What begins in tension and hesitation unfolds into a liberating dance. Through each suspended movement, she tells a fragile story of transformation: a personal solo about inner struggles, learning to trust, and the quiet power of letting go. 

Cléa Anderfuhren

Country: Switzerland 
Specialisation: Club Juggling 
Coach: Darragh McLoughlin  
Email: clea.anderfuhren@gmail.com 
Instagram: @cleouille._ 

Biography
Cléa Anderfuhren is a 23-year-old club juggler and partner acrobat flyer from Switzerland. At 16, she moved to Madrid to study at Carampa Circus School, graduating in 2020. Her journey continued through Portugal and led her to Codarts Circus Arts in the Netherlands. For Cléa, circus is a means to explore and push herself physically, mentally, and artistically. At Codarts, she learned to share this experience with her audience, crafting work that blends contrasts and surprises through movement and juggling. Passionate about circus as a field of knowledge, she seeks innovative projects at the intersection of education, research, and artistic creation. 

Performance Description 
Title: Flickers of Time
Step into a world where movement transforms into imagery, and reality blurs with fantasy. Inspired by Tim Burton’s Vincent, an eccentric and unsettled character guides the audience through an emotional inner journey. Set on a special day, the solo act dives into powerful memories, unraveling intense moments from the character’s life. Through the manipulation of objects, Cléa Anderfuhren blends poetic movements with visual storytelling to explore themes of self-discovery. The result is a surreal passage through the inner world of a character, shifting between light and dark, calm and chaos, offering an emotional experience that is both intimidating and gently haunting. 

Lily Nolan

Country: USA
Specialisation: Handstands & Acrobatics
Coach: Lukas Karvelis
Email: lilys.nolan@gmail.com
Instagram: @lily_soleil_

Biography:
Lily Nolan (2003, she/her) is a Netherlands-based circus artist specialising in handstands and acrobatics. She will graduate from Codarts Circus Arts in 2025 and has a background in modern and contemporary dance, as well as partner acrobatics. Lily’s passion lies in collaborative processes and in exploring the dynamics of co-creation to yield unexpected results. Her work merges the stillness of handstands with the momentum and dynamics of acrobatics to create movement where precision and freedom coexist. Actively involved in solo, duet, and group creations, she values versatility and draws inspiration from growing up travelling and performing with her family.

Performance description
Title: With Eyes Closed 
With Eyes Closed unfolds on a patch of artificial grass, where reality bends and twists like a half-remembered dream. In a space between the familiar and the absurd, handstands and acrobatics create fleeting moments of balance in a world that doesn’t stand still. Thoughts, feelings, and movements shift unpredictably. Each action appears and vanishes like a dream, leaving only a trace. In this dance of uncertainty, logic fades, giving way to the beauty of the intangible. In a world that often demands clarity, control, and explanation, With Eyes Closed offers an alternative: feel free to embrace the ambiguity.  

Sam Balthasar

Country: Switzerland  
Specialisation: Diabolo 
Coach: Erik Bos 
Email: Samsixenroute@gmail.com  
Instagram: @Samchaton 

Biography:
Sam Balthasar is a circus artist from Switzerland who specialises in diabolo, but also works with floor and partner acrobatics. After studying for two years at the preparatory school Carampa in Madrid, he spent a year at the École de Cirque de Lausanne in Switzerland, and eventually joined Codarts, where he is about to graduate. In addition to circus, he has a strong interest in crafting and has recently become involved in robotics. In his practice, he explores how machines can be integrated into circus performance and become a point of interest for the audience in their own right.

Performance description
Title: Sam, Pascal and Carlos
In "Sam, Pascal and Carlos", step into a mad scientist’s lab where every invention revolves around the diabolo. Starting from a simple wooden box, a universe unfolds and becomes ever more intricate. Between Carlos, the diabolo launcher, and Pascal, the stick shooter, stands a juggler trying to balance his chaotic mind with his inventions. Throughout the piece, the audience gains access to the character’s mind, his passions, and his flaws, in a juggling performance where diabolo technique is not just a skill, but part of a beautiful, complex form of chaos.

Sequoia van Ekeren

Country: The Netherlands 
Specialisation: Static Trapeze 
Coach: Ganna Poppea 
Email: sequoiavanekeren@gmail.com 
Instagram: @sequoia_boom (eventually)

Biography:
Sequoia van Ekeren is a versatile trapeze artist, performer, and musician based in The Hague. Her circus journey began at the age of six at youth circus Circaso. In 2016, she started studying musical theatre at DAPA (mbo level 4), graduating in 2019. She continued her education at Fontys Circus Tilburg and Codarts Circus Arts, where she specialised in static trapeze (a form of aerial acrobatics in which the apparatus remains still, while the performer moves freely.) 

She is currently part of the ensemble and aerial cover in Mamma Mia! The Party (Rotterdam). Alongside her circus work, she writes and performs her own music and is active in programming and stage management at festivals. What drives her as a creator? A playful search for meaning, blending humour, absurdity, and personal reflection. In her work, she merges movement, music, and theatre into a distinctive artistic language. 

Performance description
Title: May Be
A woman steps onto the stage, proudly wearing all her beloved Crocs. Yes, all of them. She doesn’t question her choices; she just loves being on stage. It’s fun! But is that enough? 

Through absurdist humour, static trapeze, spoken word, and an abundance of pink Crocs, she tumbles into a spiral of playful existential doubt. 

May Be is a theatrical trapeze act by Sequoia van Ekeren exploring the search for meaning, or the freedom of letting that go. 

Why must everything be explained? Maybe it’s okay to simply be. 

An invitation to, just for a moment, stop looking for reason. 

Shea Baker 

Country: England 
Specialisation: Aerial Straps Loops 
Coach: Craig Weston 
Email:sheadf@gmail.com 
Instagram: @sheadylan_ 

Biography:
Shea is an aerialist and acrobat from London, specialising in straps loops and rope. After finishing her musical theatre course at The BRIT School, she moved to Rotterdam to begin her degree at Codarts. Shea has spent her years at school developing her movement vocabulary and creating her own dictionary of technique, inspired by the endless possibilities of movement and driven by an instinct for creative exploration. Often starting her creation with the concept of getting stuck, with the goal to eventually find her way out of the mess, Shea enjoys pushing the boundaries of traditional apparatus use, constantly seeking unconventional pathways. 

Performance description
Title: I Can't Seem to Find the Point 
How bizarre can absurd get? Is there a point? Where’s the point? In this 8-minute aerial straps loops solo, Shea Baker invites you into a world that only exists within the act. Don’t expect logic or a storyline. What if nothing had to make sense?

Inspired by her own confusion about what defines technique in such a seemingly rigid discipline, Shea creates a universe where absurdity is the norm. Blending aerial movement, straps loops technique, music and lots of quirkiness, the act blurs the line between meaning and nonsense. Let yourself be carried away. Sometimes, getting lost is exactly the point. 

Tatjana Sommer

Country: Germany 
Specialisation: Tightwire 
Coach: Mikail Karahan 
Email:  sommertatjana@outlook.com 
Instagram: @sommer_tatjana 

Biography:
Tatjana Sommer is a German tightwire artist, set to graduate from Codarts Circus Arts in 2025. While tightwire is her core discipline, she values versatility and actively trains in trampoline, acrobatics, and partner/group acrobatics. Tatjana thrives in collaborative settings and draws inspiration from the shared energy of collective creation. Her artistic voice is playful and curious, driven by a desire to blur boundaries between styles and explore how movement can shift between precision, chaos, softness, and risk. With a strong interest in expanding the language of tightwire, she combines techniques across disciplines to challenge expectations and discover new ways of performing on the wire. 

Performance description
Title: Zap 
"ZAP" is an 8-minute solo performance that blends tightwire technique with parkour and explosive acrobatics, transforming the wire into a three-dimensional playground. It pushes boundaries by combining dynamic tricks with flexibility and control. The solo draws the audience into a world where risk is approached with curiosity and playfulness, like the red button you’re told not to press but want to anyway. The movement exploration sparks tension and humour, creating an emotional exchange between audience and performer. "ZAP" examines how taking risks can open up new ways of moving and exploring beyond feminine and masculine stereotypes. 

Tom Laurent 

Country: France  
Specialisation: Handstand  
Coach: Mille Lundt  
Email: tomlaurent.cirque@gmail.com 

Biography:
If only four words could describe himself as a circus artist, they would be: Tom LAURENT, French, Hand balancer. Known for his twisted and distorted shapes, he explores how handstand technique can stretch the limits of physical form and perception.  

To improve his skills, Tom trained for two years at CRAC de Lomme under the discipline of Yaqin Deng and later continued developing his technique at Codarts, shaped by the precise eye of Juan Liu.  

For Tom, circus only makes sense through moments of shared energy with the audience. Looking for him? He’s most likely the one wearing a pink beanie. 

Performance description
Why are we constantly seeking to be seen?  

In Make the Unseen Visible, Tom Laurent explores the relationship between visibility and presence. Combining handstand technique with lighting effects, he plays with shadows, reflections, and duplication of his own image.  

In this act, being visible is not the point – but being seen is.  

Wondering what impact it would have to not see anyone on stage but only their shadow(s), Tom plays with our expectations.  

Make the Unseen Visible leaves us suspended in a world of mystery and disorientation – both unsettling and intriguing.