Press

Air Temple has been featured in both local and national news! You can read and watch all of our ‘clippings’ below:

START-UP:

Air Temple Arts start up episode page‘Start-Up’ is a television program that offers it’s viewers an up-close and personal look into the world of the modern American entrepreneur. 

As complicated as starting a business may seem, our goal is to de-mystify the process through the experiences of Americans who have done just that.

‘Start-Up’ is a completely original show and the first of it’s kind. It gives the viewer a unique opportunity to see how normal people, just like them, are rebuilding America, one business at a time.

Air Temple Arts is a featured business in Season 3, Episode 3. Watch the whole episode below, or just the Air Temple segment starting at 13:00!

 

New Haven Magazine:

We are featured in the September 2015 issue of New Haven Magazine as one of their Dreamers and Doers!

Air Temple Arts New haven mag dreamers and doers
The Daily Nutmeg:

nutmeg staceyAir Temple has been featured twice in New Haven’s premiere blog in 2015! Once in a feature on the studio and once for our show Special Relativity: Circus through Space and Time!

young woman in black and grey, with long brown locks tied back into a braid, is rising stepwise into the air. Torso muscles rippling, she hoists herself up sheets of chartreuse nylon fastened to a ceiling high above…She cuts a figure like a ballet dancer, or a figure skater, or a gymnast, maybe all three, and holds the pose for some twenty seconds as onlookers crow in support: “Alriiight.” “So good.” “Yeah!”’

Read the full article here!

‘Using “Chinese pole, aerial dance, acrobatics, contortion, Spanish web and more” to tell the tale, Special Relativity is special for many reasons, including its rarity: the last time conceivers/performers Stacey Kigner and Allison McDermott collaborated on something like this, it was 2012.’

Read the Nutmeg’s teaser on Special Relativity here!

The New Haven Register:

lauren stacey bat hangNew Haven’s newspaper ran a feature on our full length show, Special Relativity in January 2015.

‘Surprise No. 1: There’s a circus school in New Haven. Surprise No. 2: It’s about to premiere its first professional show, Special Relativity — Circus Through Space and Time this Friday and Saturday at ACES/ECA Arts Hall on Audubon Street.

And, yes, “circus” is a relative term. Stacey Kigner, who owns, instructs and performs at the circus school Air Temple Arts on State Street, says that this version involves partner acrobatics, aerial silks, juggling, contortion, aerial hoop, static trapeze, aerial straps and tumbling. Not sideshows or lion tamers.’

Read the full feature here!

New Haven Living:

new haven living kateWe were featured in the March 2014 issue of New Haven Living!

‘If a lack of marketable skills has postponed your fantasy of running off to join the circus, good news awaits in the old Robby Len Bathing Suit Building on State Street in New Haven. Air Temple Arts, an aerial dance and circus movement studio, can help get you in shape for the Big Top (or tank top) in no time…Under the supervision of owner Stacey Kigner, who got her start in circus arts at Vassar College in a group called the Barefoot Monkeys, the progression from nervous novice to agile acrobat is not only safe but steady.’

Read the full feature here!

Woodbridge Paper:

We were a spotlighted business in a May 2016 edition of the paper.

‘Stacey Kigner’s goal is to make circus accessible to everyone. Her business, Air Temple Arts, teaches circus and aerial arts on Research Drive in Woodbridge…The 2,000 square foot main studio is colorful – the floor is covered nearly wall to wall with a bright blue mat and brightly colored “aerial silks” hang from the ceiling.

“That is amazing!” Scalettar said.’

Read the full article here.

Yale Daily News:

We were featured in a YDN article on local circus in March, 2015!

Lauren Seuch Air Temple‘Since opening in January 2013, Air Temple Arts, New Haven’s first aerial dance and circus studio center has had to move locations twice in need of more space to hold class and training hours. They opened with only 19 students and a few classes a week. Now, the studio trains more than 115 students in its current session with eight different instructors.  Classes, held in the evenings, cover hand balancing, Chinese pole, dance techniques, contortion, kid’s circus, partnering, and cirque fitness.

At the Air Temple studio on State Street, you won’t find a tent or a box of clown wigs, but floors covered in thick mats, colorful nylon material (known as “silks” in the industry) hanging from the ceiling ropes and various trapeze apparatuses…Air Temple aims to introduce the idea of using physicality to interact creatively with the world in each of their classes.’

Full story here.

Pioneer Press:

Stacey was the subject of 2 page Q& A feature in the Pioneer Press in Jan 2016.

Q: What has been most rewarding about your career and what has been most challenging?

Air Temple Arts Special Relativity Duo Chinese Pole Nick cegelka stacey kignerThe community that’s sprung up around Air Temple has been the best part of this endeavor. The student showcases that we do continue to be my favorite thing about the school. Seeing these students, a lot of them who come in very nervous and weak and not trusting their own bodies, perform a piece that they’ve written themselves and put months of work into is absolutely amazing.

I would say the logistics have been the most challenging. Creating a circus community where there isn’t one means a lot of potential business opportunity, but it’s also very hard.

Also trying to find a space that I can afford, versus what the studio requires (a large open square footage, generally ceilings in excess of 20 feet) has been really challenging. We’re expanding for the second time, and hopefully the last time. Our new space is amazing, and a huge step up, but it’s also extremely expensive.

Read the full feature here!