Ringstar Studio

Diane is the founder and all-around thing-doer at Ringstar Studio. Her aerial silks interest began in 2012 and quickly grew into a passion that couldn't be contained. She currently teaches aerial silks classes several times a week at Ringstar in addition to performing at venues such as the Motor City Irish Festival, the Saline Celtic Festival, the Great Lakes Fright Fest, the Tangent Gallery, and the Ypsi Heritage Festival.

 

As a general circus enthusiast, she is always seeking out new and exciting disciplines to incorporate into her performance repertoire. Her other circus skills include aerial hammock, fire dance, hand balancing, and beginning contortion.

 

Diane is also a stage combat enthusiast, as well as Assistant Manager of the Ring of Steel Action Theatre. She has been sword slinging since 2008 and has performed at hundreds of events large and small. She is currently the director of their summer stunt camp and is a certified performer in rapier, rapier & dagger, quarterstaff, and broadsword. Her areas of stunt expertise include high falls, mini trampoline, bull whip, falling & rolling, and theatrical wire work.

Joe has focused on fitness and in training people to achieve their goals for the past decade. He started teaching and training with high school fitness teams, then moved on to and learned from military fitness methods both before and during college.

As a NASM certified trainer, his background allows him to work with anyone, regardless of their age/gender/fitness state, to achieve their individual goals in a manner that doesn’t sacrifice safety for results. Whether you are looking to run your first 5k, increase relative strength, develop power, return to a state of fitness and overcome a sidelining injury, break through a fitness plateau, trim your waistline, or train for an adventure race, his methods are time proven to be effective at delivering the results you want.

Jen has been practicing, performing, and teaching the diabolo for the past 15 years in the Ann Arbor area. As a self-taught practitioner for over a decade, she has performed on stages at small talent shows, to outdoor festivals, to corporate events, and has experimented with various types of diabolos, from the traditional hard plastic Chinese yo-yos, to the modern rubber design, to glow-in-the-dark, to fire. Her diabolo performances are featured in The Ring of Steel’s traveling circus show, where she astounds audiences of all ages. She continues to practice and perform with University of Michigan’s Revolution, where they fuse a traditional Chinese art with Western hip-hop and choreography.

The Ring of Steel Action Theatre and Stunt Troupe has been performing, choreographing, and providing stage combat instruction since 1989. Their classes run throughout the year, covering a wide range of topics with an emphasis on sword play for stage and screen.

 

In addition to their classes and workshops, the Ring of Steel trains and choreographs for hundreds of actors every year in productions ranging from high school drama to professional opera.

 

See their website at http://ringofsteel.org for full details.

Taqqee has been studying martial arts almost all of his life. He has trained in many different styles. Through his training he noticed that most martial arts take a lot of time to become proficient. That is why he created Close Quarters Combat Academy. He has taken his life time of experience and used it to create a complete self defense system that is for everyday people no matter their size, age, or skill. Combat is based on principles not techniques. The CQC system has many different martial influences, primarly from South Pacific martial arts like Silat and Kali, but it also has influences from Judo, Hapkido, Brazilian Jujitsu, Wing Chun, and 52 Blocks. He has blended these individual arts into one comprehensive self-defense system.