Lara Paxton
Lara Paxton founded the Aerialistas with a group of her best students and favorite colleagues in 2004. She is also the founder and artistic director of Circus Contraption, a nationally touring, one-ring troupe now entering its tenth year. She has studied circus arts in Seattle, San Francisco, Montreal, Los Angeles and Buenos Aires since 1998. Considered a pioneer in the rapidly-growing Seattle circus arts community, Lara has been teaching classes in trapeze, rope, fabric, hoop and invented apparatus for eight years at her "Aerial Academy of Love." She and her students formed the outreach group, "The Aerial Army of Love" in 2006 with the mission of using circus arts to raise money for those in extreme poverty. Now apprenticing with large-scale metal artist Mark Stevens, Lara plans to expand her work on original aerial sculptures.