Jen is a founding member of A-WOL Dance Collective. She wears many hats at A-WOL, but she absolutely adores her role as an artistic director and company member. As a lover of collaborative creation and the exploration of combining floor work with aerial movement, A-WOL brings completion to her life! Her background and training include Pendulum Aerial Arts, Polaris Dance Theatre and a number of amazing choreographers and instructors in the western states including Mary Hunt and Jayne Persch. She also enjoys teaching aerial, dance and aerial yoga and her most recent endeavor includes her Aerial Yoga Teacher Training, Soulaira, that she co-founded with Jessica Baker in 2014. In Jen's spare time she maintains her registration as a dietitian, runs a sheet metal company, attempts multiple coffee dates with her husband each week and is raising her two children, Rustin and Sienna. 

Alicia is a native Oregonian and has been dancing since the day she was born on this soil. Alicia holds a degree from the University of Oregon in Communication Disorders and Sciences and Psychology. She is quite busy at A-WOL holding many positions including Co-Director of the Company, Director of Circus Rose (A-WOL’s entertainment company) and Gym Rat. She has trained many dance disciplines including jazz, modern, hip hop, ballet and contemporary movement. Since becoming an aerialist in adulthood, she has become a very passionate instructor and has trained with some of her favorite creative athletes such as Alex Allan, Deena Marcum Selko, Serenity Smith Forchion, Susan Murphy, Valerie Morris, and Elsie Smith. Her focuses include dance, partner acrobatics, rope, fabric, and lyra but she welcomes on any new apparatus when challenged to do so. Alicia’s favorite aspect of A-WOL is the fusion of dance, acrobatics, and aerial included in productions.

Angela grew up in dance studios and on gymnastics floors, but her real passion was jumping rope. She performed and traveled as part of a jump rope team all through middle and high school. This is how she realized her love of the stage! Years later she took up partner acrobatics and aerial dance. As an adult she has found that these art forms feed her soul in a way that nothing else can. So much so that she has chosen the path of teacher and coach as well as performer. She performs as an acrobat with Tempos Contemporary Circus and is honored to be in the air as part of A-WOL Dance Collective!

Kim is originally from Eugene Oregon and fell in love with dancing at a young age. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in dance from the University or Oregon in 2014 where she spent her time performing in multiple shows, teaching, and touring with the University of Oregon Repertory Dance Company as a lighting designer. Kim served as a board member for a student organization called Dance Oregon, helping to provide opportunities for dancers outside of the University setting. Her continued studies include the winter American Dance Festival, Joe Goode's summer dance intensive, AWOL Dance Collectives’ adult professional aerial training program FlyCo, and studying the gaga movement language at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv, Israel. In her free time she enjoys a good pun, hiking, skiing, spending time with her husband, and pulling pranks on her closest friends.

Beth, originally from Portland, Oregon, started taking classes at A-WOL in 2014 and began performing with the company in 2020. When it comes to dance she loves watching old Hollywood tap dancing the most. You will also find Beth coaching at A-WOL for Aeros, FlyCo and our adult recreational classes.

Emily, affectionately known as Eek at A-WOL, grew up in Vancouver, WA. Her first appearance for A-WOL was as a young guest artist in 2007, she joined the Aeros program in 2009, and started performing with the company in 2011. She earned a BFA in dance performance and choreography from California Institute of the Arts and specializes in contemporary dance. In 2018 Emily ruptured her left Achilles tendon and in March of 2025 she ruptured her right. She missed the 2025 season but is looking forward to performing in the 2026 season!

Jessie has been with A-WOL for over 8 years. She has performed as a guest artist in Art in the Dark four times, 2026 will be here first year as a company member performing. She grew up in Southern Oregon, spent many years away, and then moved back to Oregon to raise her daughter. She specializes in aerial dance, but her favorite type of dance to watch is really talented salsa dancers. The thing Jessie loves most about performing is that in those moments on stage, in the air, the rest of the world melts away. All of life’s little stresses and chores are gone and she is absolutely focused on what she is doing and what or who she is holding onto. It’s an experience she doesn’t get to replicate in her everyday life.

2025 was Tia’s second year swinging from the trees in A-WOL’s Art in the Dark! Originally from the very rectangular state of Colorado, Tia’s background was anything but square. She grew up flipping, dancing, and soaring through the air, training in gymnastics, power tumbling, trampoline, and dance. As a professional, she has left her sweat mark on many stages, trapezes and trampolines, performing and teaching with companies like Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Do Jump! Extremely Physical Theater, Polaris Dance Theatre, POV Dance, SubRosa Dance Collective and A-WOL Dance Collective.When she’s not defying gravity on stage, Tia runs Trampoline Town, a circus studio in southwest where she teaches aerial arts, trampoline, and acrobatics to the next generation of circus stars. She’s also a founding member of Portland Dance Film Fest, serving as Director of Operations. Tia shares her colorful world with 2 energetic kids, 2 demure cats, 1 loyal dog, 1 chill lizard, and 1 very supportive husband.

Makena first performance with AWOL was in 2022 in the show Glass Shadows. Originally from Canby, Oregon, she danced at Allegro Dance Studio during her childhood. She specializes in ballet and contemporary, and loves learning and progressing with aerial dance. Makena’s dancing is inspired by the music’s story. To her it is the job of dancers to portray what the music wants. When that story is found, both the dancers and the audience can feel it!

Aphyna began her dance training in ballet, jazz, hip hop and contemporary when she was 13 years old and was transformed by the power and joy she discovered in expressing herself through movement. As a very shy child the discovery of dance gave Aphyna an outlet for expression, which fed her soul. She continued her performance training throughout college where she also discovered her love of burlesque dance. Aphyna’s passion for travel led her to explore movement art across the globe. She began performing professionally in Amman, Jordan and Beirut, Lebanon in 2013. She immersed herself in Butoh in Barcelona and attributes her emerging artistic style to all of these experiences. Her soul searching eventually brought her back to Portland to study aerial arts at Awol where she completed the FlyCo training program in 2018 and was invited to be an apprentice for the company and in 2020 she became a professional company member. For Aphyna, dancing in the air feels like the most exquisite embodiment of freedom and strength.