Alayna
Alayna Stroud was born in Michigan. She grew up on a dairy farm with 5 siblings, climbing trees, and riding horses. A congenital heart defect loomed over her in her early years and seemed to be bent on numbering her days. Her parents enrolled her in dance classes as a last ditch effort to help her gain more strength. And it worked. Not only did she grow stronger, and grow out of her health problems, she also fell in love. Dance and the connection it gave her to her body and the power to heal herself carved a path into her future that her parents never could have predicted. At 14 she left home to pursue dance and that led her to aerial and eventually the circus world.
Alayna studied contemporary dance at Interlochen Arts Academy, University of Michigan, Mills College, and received her BFA from North Carolina School of the Arts. She began her aerial dance career in the bay area with the originator of the single point dance trapeze, Terry Sendgraff/ Motivity. She is a co-founder of Bow & Sparrow, a collaborative aerial dance project with Kate Law and also Cirque Noir an aerial burlesque quartet. Alayna was in the creation cast of the Cirque du Soleil production Iris, in Los Angeles. In promoting this show she made an appearance on the Oscars, The Jay Leno and Ellen Degeneres shows. She was also for a time the creative director of Supperclub LA as well as Supperclub SF, where she developed Syn Circus as the Supperclub's resident multi disciplinary performance company. Producing well crafted corporate, club, and theater friendly entertainment, it has now taken on a life of its own. Over the coarse of the last 10 years or so she has taught, danced and flown as a freelancer with Jo Kreiter’s FlyAway Productions and Project Bandaloop. And over the course of the last 20 years or so since this journey has began, she has performed all over the world with these companies and as a solo artist.
Alayna continues to enjoy teaching sensual movement, pole dancing, aerial dance, and performs in & produces her own Syn Circus work. She has moved to the mountains to raise her son and is excited to have joined the staff of The Aerial Lab and its performance crew. Alayna believes that movement is the key to unlocking all the potential and wisdom within us.
Alayna studied contemporary dance at Interlochen Arts Academy, University of Michigan, Mills College, and received her BFA from North Carolina School of the Arts. She began her aerial dance career in the bay area with the originator of the single point dance trapeze, Terry Sendgraff/ Motivity. She is a co-founder of Bow & Sparrow, a collaborative aerial dance project with Kate Law and also Cirque Noir an aerial burlesque quartet. Alayna was in the creation cast of the Cirque du Soleil production Iris, in Los Angeles. In promoting this show she made an appearance on the Oscars, The Jay Leno and Ellen Degeneres shows. She was also for a time the creative director of Supperclub LA as well as Supperclub SF, where she developed Syn Circus as the Supperclub's resident multi disciplinary performance company. Producing well crafted corporate, club, and theater friendly entertainment, it has now taken on a life of its own. Over the coarse of the last 10 years or so she has taught, danced and flown as a freelancer with Jo Kreiter’s FlyAway Productions and Project Bandaloop. And over the course of the last 20 years or so since this journey has began, she has performed all over the world with these companies and as a solo artist.
Alayna continues to enjoy teaching sensual movement, pole dancing, aerial dance, and performs in & produces her own Syn Circus work. She has moved to the mountains to raise her son and is excited to have joined the staff of The Aerial Lab and its performance crew. Alayna believes that movement is the key to unlocking all the potential and wisdom within us.
