Siena Moon Performing Arts

Siena Moon
Boston, Massachusetts

Siena Moon is a multi-disciplinary circus artist specializing in spinning arts, aerial acrobatics, fire arts, and stilt walking. After falling in love with hoop dance at a music festival almost a decade ago, she dove head first into circus and spent the next several years establishing herself as a pioneer flow artist on the Northeast music festival circuit. During the years that followed, she continued to thrive on stage with local musicians while expanding her reach to other types of events.

Today, she dazzles crowds internationally both as a solo artist and in collaboration with a number of performance troupes including Boston Circus Guild, Boston Hoop Troop, and Luminous Fire & Flow. She seeks to inspire others to explore the act of play and find empowerment through radical self-expression and artistic liberation.

Flow Journey

When did you begin your journey into the flow arts, and how were you inspired to start?

I first saw hoop dance at Bonnaroo in 2009 and it was love at first sight. I watched a girl on shakedown getting down with a hoop as I munched on a grilled cheese and couldn’t take my eyes off of her. After that weekend (which was my first festival ever), I bought a hoop as soon as I got home, and started practicing every single day in my tiny apartment where I learned lots of beginner moves off of HoopCity and YouTube. I soon started attending local classes with Boston Hoop Troop and hoop jams, and connected with the blossoming flow arts community in Boston. Within a year, I began performing and contacting festivals in my area to be hired as a flow artist to teach workshops and perform.

What do you love about the experience of performing?

Performing is something I’ve loved to do since a young age and I feel super lucky to be able to still do it as an adult, because it makes me feel like a kid and brings me such joy. I love getting into costume and playing a different character for a day. I love when people are amazed at circus skills and want to learn how to do it themselves. It’s all about making someone’s day brighter, or showing them something cool they’ve never seen before that they want to learn. I also love telling people how I started from scratch and am almost entirely self-taught with hooping, which makes them realize its accessible and anyone can learn!

How has being a part of the flow community touched your life? How can the flow community make an impact and how do you see yourself being a part of it?

Before I discovered hooping, I was working a 9-5 desk job and felt little sense of purpose with the daily grind. Falling in love with the art and making friends through classes, hoop jams, Hoop Convergence and performing helped get me out of my funk and channel my energy into creative expression. I joined the Boston Hoop Troop in 2011 and have helped organize and host countless spinjams, classes, workshops with traveling teachers, weekend intensives, World Hoop Day events (like screening the Hooping Life and having flash mobs throughout the city), performances and more. Every time a new hooper comes up to me and says I have inspired them to start hooping or pick up another spinning art, I am so grateful that I took the leap into becoming so involved in the Boston/New England circus/flow arts community.

Background

What are your main props/specialties?

Hoops – 7 years
Aerial (Fabric, Rope, Hoop, Tippy Hoop, Cube) – 6 years
Fans (3 years)
Poi (6 years)
Fire Eating (5 years)
Wand (4 years)
Dragon Staff (2 years)
Stilt Walking (2 years)
Contact Staff (1 year)
>Partner Acro (2 years)

Where do you like to practice the most?

I often train at Esh Circus Arts where I study as part of the Professional Prep Program, or in my own backyard where I have tricked out into a flow-friendly chill space with mirrors, mats, aerial rigging, and prop racks.

Do you have any flow related personal successes that you’d like to share?

I have been teaching classes and workshops since 2010 and have taught at the following events: New England Flow Fest, Wildfire Retreat, Big Up Festival, Disc Jam Music Festival, New England Center for Circus Arts. I have been organizing and hosting community events like spinjams, meetups, workshops, classes, and World Hoop Day events since 2011.

I have been a featured artist on Hooping.org both solo and with Boston Hoop Troop.

3/25/2011: “Siena Moon” http://www.hooping.org/2011/03/siena-moon/

1/13/2016: “Boston Hoop Troupe” http://www.hooping.org/2016/01/boston-hoop-troop/

“The Art of Fire” Feature Article: https://nanabojodesigns.wordpress.com/2015/05/

Community Involvement

Are you a part of a flow community or flow meet-up? Are there any local flow gatherings near you?

I have been a core member of the Boston Hoop Troop since 2011 and have helped to organize and host lots of weekly spinjams, meetups, workshops/classes, hosted traveling hoop teachers like Emma Kenna, Steve Bags, Caroleeena, Brecken Rivara, Anne Humphreys and NinjaHoops (to name a few) and teach at festivals like Wildfire and New England Flow Fest for the past several years. I have met so many awesome people through jams and meet ups and am so grateful that they are so prevalent here in Boston.

Are you in a troupe or performance group?

Find Me!

At which festivals/events/retreats can you be found over the summer and through the rest of the year?

2016 has been a huge year in terms of amping up my performance business and becoming serious about doing this professionally. I have learned a ton in the Pro Prep program at Esh Circus Arts and am performing at my first Burning Man conclave in 2 weeks. I have learned valuable skills in team leadership and management as a managing director for Luminous Fire and Flow. I have booked more gigs this summer than ever before, and all have been in line with the industry standard rates in the region which is great. My goal this year has been to book more high-paying, high-profile gigs and I’m super grateful that the hard work I have put in earlier this year is now paying off.

Are you an active performer?

I work part-time as a professional circus artist performing solo under Siena Moon Circus Artist, as well as with the Boston Hoop Troop, Boston Circus Guild, and the troupe I co-founded in 2014, Luminous Fire & Flow. I am also a lead choreographer with Incineration Congregation, Boston’s Burning Man fire conclave. IC was recently selected to perform at Burning Man this year for the 3rd year in a row (and the 3rd year of its existence). I served as a manager for the Disc Jam Flow Tribe from 2013-2015, and was responsible for recruiting and managing flow artists to perform at Disc Jam Music Festival in Stephentown, NY.

I currently train in the Professional Preparatory Program at Esh Circus Arts in Somerville, MA focusing in aerial rope, silks, and hoop. Some past/upcoming clients I have worked with include: Gillette Stadium, Oberon Nightclub, Royale Nightclub, Disc Jam Music Festival, Northshore Magazine, Great North Music Festival, HONK!, WGBH Studios, FIGMENT, and Lawn on D in Boston.

I performed in The Slutcracker, a popular holiday burlesque show with a cult like following in the Boston area as a hoop dancer in 2011 and 2014. The show runs about 20 performances almost daily throughout the month of December each year.