SoCal's 2nd Annual PACIFIC SOUTH WEST REGIONALS
Meet our awe inspiring judging panel filled with world renown performers and coaches!
JEHAN IZAR
is a movement scientist, creative producer, and the founder-director of The Stage Global in Pomona, California. With a Master’s in Kinesiology and credentials as both a Sports Performance Coach and Medical Exercise Specialist, Jehan masterfully blends the science and art of human movement to create transformative approaches to training and performance.
A passionate advocate for inclusivity in sport and the performing arts, her work celebrates every body’s right to move, express, and excel.
As a performer, Jehan is known for her bold stage presence, theatrical characters, and powerful storytelling through intentional, expressive movement.
Over the past decade, Jehan has written, directed, and produced more than fifty circus and pole productions worldwide — including directing the inaugural Pole Theatre Egypt competition in 2019 and Rise: The Night Pole Show in Los Angeles in 2020.
A two-time gold medalist with the PSO, Jehan has also coached athletes across the United States, Australia, and the Middle East to podium finishes in both aerial and pole competitions.
FRANKIE TAN
Described as “resolutely incapable of being one dimensional” Frankie Tan is a fearsome artist and entertainer whose work explores the intersection of environment, embodiment, joy, and grief.
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They have performed nationwide, and been prominently featured as an aerial circus artist with Cirque Berzerk, Ultra Music Festival, Kaimera Wanderbeasts, and others, and is a principal aerialist with Madmann’s Playground. They have held performance residencies at legendary venues throughout Los Angeles and San Francisco, and are known for their magnetic, emotive performance style- described “as spellbinding as I have ever seen…powerful… beguiling, and totally believable” by Noho Arts District (2023).
Their aerial burlesque act was honorably mentioned at the Oregon Burlesque Festival 2019 & they were named a performer in not one but three of LA Weekly’s Best Burlesque Shows 2019, including as a soloist in Hollywood’s famed aerial burlesque show, Luxe Obscura. Frankie is a scholarship graduate of the Alonzo King Lines Ballet Training Program and adjacent pedagogy program, and their teaching philosophy is rooted in somatic wellness and thoughtful body mechanics. When not training, teaching, or wrangling performers, Frankie can be found authoring their next award-nominated book.
KRISTEN LI
Kristen Li is a Los Angeles–based dancer and aerialist with over a decade of experience coaching across multiple disciplines of dance and aerial. She specializes in flying pole, Lyra, and chains, though her curiosity keeps her exploring a wide range of apparatuses and movement styles both on the ground and in the air.
With a BFA in Dance and a BS in Exercise Science and Kinesiology, Kristen bridges the worlds of dance and aerial, transforming technical precision into storytelling through movement. Her choreography is known for its seamless flow, expressive intention, and attention to musicality, inviting audiences and students alike to connect with the emotion behind each movement.
AMANDA RITCHIE
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Amanda began performing at three years old. By the age of seven she starred in a local South Florida children’s show, KidZone.
Her passion for performing blossomed and before she attended high school she was offered the opportunity to study with the Joffrey Ballet School on scholarship.
During her academic schooling, Amanda worked full time performing with the Ft. Lauderale Ballet Classique. But after graduation, her desire to travel the world led her to run away with the circus as a headlining aerialist/dancer with shows such as:
Dezire, Cirque on Ice and Four Spirit of the Elements.
In 2009 until May 2015 she made the bright lights of Vegas her home performing with Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity and Michael Jackson ONE.
Amanda now lives in Los Angeles, California where she teaches her craft to all ages and all walks of life. In 2020 Grounded in Flight, Amanda’s aerial company and studio, was born.
KIMBERELY SIMONETTI
Celebrity Trainer Kimberely Simonetti, E-RYT, PRYT, is theCreator and Founder of Up Flying Yoga™. She is YogaDoctor™ certified, Yoga Medicine™Trained and a member of the International Yoga Association of Yoga Therapy. Kimberely has spent over a decade defying gravity creatingUp Flying Yoga™ and Up Fly Aerial Dance™ as she is best known for her strong belief in the therapeutic power ofAerial Yoga Arts.
Her personal journey includes finding holistic ways for living with a damaged kidney and understanding the powerful benefits of inversion therapy through Aerial Arts for not only the spine but also the nervous system and organs.
Kimberely shares her craft outside of Up Flying Yoga™through New Beauty Magazine, US Weekly, Forbes, GwenthPaltrow’s Goop Wellness, The Queen Mary, MTV, MSNDance Nation, America's Got Talent, Mythbusters, VH1, Yoga Journal Live. Featured on Real Housewives of BevHills, Teen Mom, Blippi, Buzzfeed, The Lovely HeartsAerial Troop, Live It Up Shows and has trained many celebrity clients including Amanda Seyfried, Howie Mandel, Heidi Klum, Mel B, Jonathan Rhys Myers,
Rumer Willis,Vanessa Hudgens, Valerie Bertinelli, and Dule Hill, to name a few.
Kimberely is also a wife and a mother of a two young children.
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