Janoah Bailin – meSSeS

For adults, families, and youth alike, SPACE is kicking off February’s school recess with a reprisal performance of Janoah’s acclaimed meSSeS with special pricing for youth.

Part performance, part workshop, YOU learn to juggle while watching this (optionally interactive) all-ages experience. Precarious unicycling, jaw-dropping juggling, mesmerizing motions … Janoah the Jester tosses together a tale of learning & labor, emerging ecstatically from a haphazard pile of props.

And (of course!) what circus would be complete without popcorn & banana peels?

meSSeS is an evening-length family-friendly solo circus-theatre-dance performance, winner of “Spirit of the Fringe” at the 2022 Elgin Fringe Festival.

Janoah Bailin (ze/zir), aka janoah…anygoodjokes? creates and performs energetic, stimulating and educational shows for family audiences with zir unique blend of circus, puppetry, story and dance. Ze originally learned to unicycle in the empty corridors of zir middle school, practicing after-hours. Janoah grew up juggling with the Suspenders Juggling Troupe in Falmouth (MA) then traveled New England with the Circus Smirkus Big Top Tour. Ze graduated in 2014 from College of the Atlantic, focusing in performance and movement. Janoah now coaches the Gym Dandies Children’s Circus of Scarborough (ME), as well as the Children’s Circus of Middletown (CT). In 2016 ze helped form the Living Room Dance Collective in Portland (ME), a space devoted to contemporary movement and performance. In the summer of 2019 ze toured SpinS, a full-length solo circus-puppetry performance, across the Canadian Fringe Festival circuit, including Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver, winning “Best Variety” in London. SpinS has since enjoyed a 12-show run at Maddy’s Theatre in the Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine. In May of 2019 Janoah premiered meSSeS, a second full-length circus-dance performance in which the audience learns to juggle during the show. Ze has brought the show to The Dance Complex (Boston), Redfern (Keene NH), Oddfellows Playhouse (Middletown CT), APA’s Contact East (Halifax NS), SPACE (Portland ME), as well as the Cincinnati, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Hartford and Elgin Fringe Festivals (where ze won “Spirit of the Fringe” 2022). Janoah has been a resident artist at the Barn Arts Collective in Bass Harbor and Subcircle in Biddeford (ME). Ze has been awarded the 2020 MAC Fellowship in the Performing Arts, NEFA’s 2021 Public Art Learning Fund, as well as numerous MAC Project and NEFA Dance Fund grants. Janoah currently performs internationally for festivals, stages and parades, leaving behind a wake of tumbled juggling props.