the country's first full-time intensive partner acrobatic training for intermediate and advanced acrobats has gone into retirement. But new things are afoot! If you'd like to train with Pitch Catch Coaches, please see more info below.
Meet the Staff
Niko Douwes
Coach
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Niko is a very experienced acrobatic instructor from The Netherlands. Well versed in the circus arts, he has spent the last 20 years training in traditional Dutch acrobatics. He is an organizer of the Dutch Juggling Convention, Dutch Acro Convention and the preconvention to the dutch acrobatics festival and the Bangkok acro convention. Additionally, Niko has helped assemble many acrobatic events throughout India, Thailand, Spain and Australia. Niko specializes in partner acrobalance and juggling. With more than 20 years experience instructing students from across the globe, Niko has built quite a reputation as a great teacher of technique and harbinger of joy. Niko’s passion for acrobatics is contagious and he truly loves spreading the knowledge and harmony of his practice to all willing and capable pupils.
Cassie Preyss (Drew)
Coach
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Cassie was one of the original coaches way back in the dawn of the age of Pitch Catch Circus. She has been channeling her energy into training, coaching and building partner acrobatics skills in Asheville and around the country ever since. She is our resident tumbling and toe-point specialist, with more than 3 decades of gymnastics experience under her belt. At Pitch Catch she is often seen alternating between back handsprings, back flying and banquine tosses to back tuck.
As part of the process of putting down roots in the mountains of NC, in 2018 Cassie co-founded the Blue Ridge Acrobatics youth acro team. She also works as a personal trainer, handstand coach, and teaches silks and lyra. She has been creating, choreographing and producing performance art since 2007.
Cassie has been pushing her physical limits ever since becoming a gymnast as a child, competing throughout college and later finding partner acrobatics and aerial arts. Her most extreme and rewarding physical achievement came more recently, with the birth of her beautiful son Phoenix Chaska into the world, followed by easing into the newer, slightly less well-rested kind of flexibility that parenthood demands.
Blox
Coach
Blox is an acrobat, one of fine feats.
He plays all the parts, they say that he cheats!
For gravity loses when this one inverts, then into a base he quickly converts.
Oh no!
Someone goes plummeting face-first-to-earth!
Look there!
I do declare, that Blox has just snatched someone out of the air!
Yet what’s more important to Blox’s soft heart
Than doing the skills with his body as art --
Is coaching, dear reader
Yes coaching indeed
Transmission of knowledge
And pedagogy.
Christine Moonbeam
Coach
Christine is the founder of Christine Moonbeam Acro, co-founder of Colorado Acro Fest, Coach at Pitch Catch Circus: School of Acrobatics, a RYT 200 with a Bachelor of Arts in Dance from the University of Iowa. Christine was first introduced to partner acrobatics in 2010 while working with a youth social circus for underserved youth in Washington D.C. called Zip Zap Circus USA. It was here that her passion for acro started to take flight! She has been studying partner acrobatics and handstands ever since with sports acro, circus and hand balancing coaches in the US and Europe. Christine has spent the last 7 years developing pedagogy, educating acro teachers, facilitating various events, traveling and teaching around the US, Europe, Asia, and Mexico. At Pitch Catch Circus School she teaches partner acro, handstands, hand balancing and dance. Christine believes partner acrobatics is a powerful tool for self-discovery, empowerment, and community building. She is an advocate of earth stewardship, food sovereignty and BIPOC + Trans allyship.
Ryan Hamity
Coach
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Ryan found his love for partner acrobatics in 2009 following a career as an elite level cyclist. He spent the following years refining, teaching, and performing across North America. He began coaching with Pitch Catch School of Acrobatics the spring of 2016 and Co-Founded Blue Ridge Acrobatics, a sport acro team in 2018. He specializes in coaching duo, trio, groups, handstands, strength training, and also has a background in personal training. When he is not coaching he enjoys building props for handstands through his brand Hammys Canes. He resides in the mountains of Asheville, NC.
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Micah Ellinger
Coach
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Micah Ellinger has been immersed in the world of partner acrobatics since 2008, starting with an intensive circus program for 9 months at New England Center for Circus Arts in Vermont, and in 2016 completed 3 years training hand to hand at École Nationale de Cirque in Montreal. Since then he has been performing internationally with several companies, including Cirque du Soleil, Cirque Éloize, and Circus Monti. In between performing contracts he enjoyed connecting with the recreational and hobbyist acrobatic communities, teaching worldwide at workshops, intensives, and festivals. Since the pandemic, he has transitioned to coaching primarily, with appreciation for how the recreational community can have a focus on connection, communication, and longevity.
Ariel Mihic
Coach
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Ariel Mihic has a passion for adventure and an insatiable curiosity to live a life less ordinary. Ariel teaches with her partner Liz as Precision Acrobatics, primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ariel is also part of the YogaSlackers group of teachers, sharing the modalities of partner acro, slackline yoga, handstands, and Thai massage. Acro is a practice that relies upon thoughtful communication, trust, and accountability; these values shape the way Ariel trains and teaches, with a commitment to providing an empowered, inclusive, and diverse training space. Ariel also shares her love for nerdy handstand drills and social justice while coaching at Pitch Catch. Her latest passion project is the BIPOC Acro Collective Care Ecosystem (BACCES), an organization working to make acro spaces more inclusive (www.bacces.org). When not doing acrobatics, you can find Ariel in the garden, playing with her puppy, or with knitting needles in her hands.
Z Farrell
Coach
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Z Farrell is a bboy and circus artist based in Philadelphia, PA, where he performs regularly with The 505. Z got his start in breaking with 3hC in Santa Fe, NM and through them began training and then teaching and performing circus at Wise Fool NM. He has also performed at Meow Wolf, the Santa Fe Opera, and at the Cannonball Festival. He loves creating, flipping, and making music.
Apryl Blakeney
Co-Founder
After nearly a decade of travel across Asia, Australia, Europe and Africa, Apryl decided it was time to settle down. So she did what any wanderlust, acrophile would do- she ran away to join the circus… naturally. Apryl began building her home within the big-top in 2012. A year later she graduated from Circomedia: Centre for Contemporary Circus in Bristol, UK where she specialized in acrobalance and physical theatre. Upon completion, Apryl began touring as a professional burlesque artist and acrobat. These days she spends most of her time basing her sweet little baby boy at Rebel Ridge: Home of the Acro Farm an intentional residential community she co-founded with other delightful acrobats. She loves raising the next generation of up-side down do-gooders inside farm-life community.
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Ilana Blankman
Co-Founder
Ilana has been teaching and performing circus for 10 years. She began her training with Wise Fool New Mexico, a social justice circus and puppetry organization in Santa Fe, NM, and served for many years as Lead Coach and Programs Director there. She attended circus school at Circomedia, in Bristol England which is where she met Apryl, and the dream of Pitch Catch was formed soon after. She regularly teaches aerials, handstands, acro and flexibility in Albuquerque, NM and Philadelphia, Pa. She is currently on tour with Flynn Creek Circus, a big top contemporary circus based in Northen California. When not upside down, she can generally be found in her kitchen making you tacos.