Take Off #16

We proudly present to you the graduates of Codarts Circus Arts 2025!

Take Off #16

Codarts - Take Off #16

Foreword

Dear guests, 

Nineteen years of hard work, sixteen cohorts of circus students presenting their final act on stage, sixteen generations of young emerging talents on the threshold to a professional career. 

We welcome you to the sixteenth edition of Take Off, where eight different personalities will bring you a varied range of circus disciplines.  

We invite you into a mad scientist’s lab and in the world of object manipulation with someone who is guided through an emotional inner journey. Feel free to embrace ambiguity, to explore handstands and acrobatics or enjoy a walk on the tight wire, while examining how taking risks can open up new paths. Enter the aerial space in which one artist is armed with all her beloved ones and others are suspended between longing and uncertainty and discover that getting lost can sometimes be exactly the quest.  

In a world that seems to turn upside down, being visible is not the point but being seen is. Circus is still (hand)standing! 

Four years ago, these students entered after an online audition, but they were very lucky afterwards to be able to train without restrictions and perform both at the school’s premises as externally at the Circusstad Festival in Rotterdam, Festival Cirque Mania in Korzo, The Hague, and Theater Zuidplein.  

In their four year bachelor programme the young talents were trained by a dedicated team of teachers, guest teachers and coaches to become circus professionals and who provide them with a strong basis to enter a varied working field. Many students add personal initiatives to this toolkit by doing internships at circus or other companies, following workshops or projects at other professional circus schools or by performing at external events. 

We would like to thank our accomplished graduation committee, who will assess and advise on the graduate’s work, all our teachers and staff and the Codarts Executive Board. 

On behalf of Codarts Circus Arts 

Anna Beentjes, Head 
Jan Daems, coordinator year 3 and 4 and professional insertion 

 

 

About the artists & the acts

Read about the artists and their acts below. 

  • Charlotte Hofer - Dance-Trapeze

    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 - Club Juggling

    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 - Handstands & Acrobatics

    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 - Diabolo

    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 - Static Trapeze

    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 - Aerial Straps Loops

    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 - Tightwire

    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 - Handstand

    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.  

Member of the international graduation commission

Erin Burley: Circus Artist – alumna Codarts Circus Arts 2019
Frederique Snoeks: Circus Artist – company Bert&Fred
Nicanor de Elia: Circus artist - director
Jordis Cordua : Coordinator Circunstruction Rotterdam Circusstad

Credits

Codarts Rotterdam 

President of the Executive Board 
David Lauwen  

Director of Education 
Caroline Harder 

Codarts Circus Arts 
Head of Codarts Circus Arts 
Anna Beentjes 

Coordinators 
Jan Daems, Thomas Falk 

Study Career Coach 4th year students 
Birgit Haberkamp 

Education Assistant 
Suns Smit 

Planning 
Lena Herrmann 

TAKE OFF #16 
Creators/performers 
Fourth year students Codarts Circus Arts 2024/2025 
Cléa Anderfuhren, Shea Baker, Sam Balthasar, Sequoia van Ekeren, Charlotte Hofer, Tom Laurent, Lily Nolan, Tatjana Sommer 

Presentation 
Yoav Shemesh

Director Take Off #16 
Thomas Falk 

Production 
Vivian Hendriks 

Light Design & Light Engineering 
Edwin van Steenbergen 

Sound Engineering 
William Bakker  

Rigging 
Nikolay Pyasta, Lisa Chudalla 

Stagehands 
Third year students Codarts Circus Arts 

Communications & Marketing
Karlijn Verschoor, Claudia Klaassen 

Photography 
Campaign: Tessa Veldhorst @de Schaapjesfabriek 
Portraits: ©CharlotteHofer  

Teachers/ Staff Codarts Circus Arts 
Jesse Bom, Rosa Boon, Aurélia Brailowsky, Sandra Buijing, Camiel Corneille, Loek van Cruchten,  Robin Eggers, Thomas Falk, Mark Glover, Mathias Goethals, Simon Granit Ossoinak, Julia Groels, Birgit Haberkamp, Blazej Jasinski, Klaus Jürgens, Evgeniya Kalugina, Gerindo Kamid Kartadinata, Lucia Kiel, Gregor Kiock, Bas Kortmann, Harm van der Laan, Juan Liu, Lotte Monshouwer, Anouk Mulders, David Mupanda, Agnes Philipsen, Eva Post, Nikolay Pyasta, Anita Radier, Valentine Remels, Saar Rombout, Tessa Ros-Könemann, Joseph Simon, Edwin van Steenbergen, Jorrit Terpstra, Bram Verhofstad, Noëmi Wagner, Dixie Wanner, Annemieke Wijers, Wybren Wouda, Mirjam Zwanenburg 

Artistic Coaches 
Noëmi Wagner, Darragh McLoughlin , Mikail Karahan , Ganna Poppea, Lukas Karvelis, Erik Bos, Craig Weston, Mille Lundt  

Facility Team Codarts Circus Arts 
Hans Bakker, Petra van Egmond, Peter Vogel, Mark van der Werff, Aart Muizer