Jena Carpenter is an aerialist, acrobat, and contortionist based in Los Angeles, California. Some of her fondest memories include her first gymnastics class at age 3, ballet class at age 8, and tree climbing to heights of over 30 feet at age 11. She continued in gymnastics during high school, and modern dance in college. Her education and training includes a Bachelor of Arts in Dance from Oberlin College, intensive study at the San Francisco Circus Center, and private coaching from various circus professionals with origins as diverse as the Moscow Circus School, Mongolia, and L'ecole Nationale du Cirque in Montreal.
Jena moved to Los Angeles in 2001 as one half of a duo with her sister Beth. They were founding members of the Eye of Newt Circus where they worked with artists from Cirque du Soleil, Cirque Eloize, Diavolo Dance Company, and the Pickle Family Circus to create unique theatrical circus productions. Jena started working with her partner Sagiv Ben Binyamin in the Eye of Newt, and their collaboration grew into a strong partnership, performing duo hand-to-hand and adagio acts, and aerial numbers. Jena and Sagiv were performers for the April 2007 Circus editorial in Italian Vogue, shot by legendary photographer Stephen Meisel, and are the featured aerialists in ValueClickMedia's 2007 ad campaign.
Jena's work also includes performing in music videos for OutKast and Dru Hill, performing her solo contortion act on Soaptalk, and doing acrobatics and stunts for the motion-capture animated film "The Polar Express". She was recently featured as a character on the USA Network's 'Character Roadtrip' where she demonstrates her training routines, and how she can teach something to even the most doubtful participants.
In 2005 Jena started performing with Liza Rose. Their combined talents created graceful modern-dance-influenced partner hand-balancing, and duo aerial silks. They started off their collaboration performing together in "Rites and Rituals", a full-length theatrical production choreographed by Christopher Fleming of the Rock School in Philadelphia, and produced by Keith Arsenault of Circus Nexus in Florida.
Also in 2005 Jena met now 12 year-old Lily Kobabe. At such a young age, Lily was already an experienced performer in ballet and rhythmic gymnastics. Jena immediately saw the potential in Lily to become an amazing contortionist and hand-balancer and began training her, and eventually managing her as a circus artist. Only a few months later, Jena's sister Beth Carpenter moved back to LA, and they began to choreograph new acts together, and as a trio with Lily.
With so much talent to draw from, Jena founded Beautiful Freak Entertainment with the goal of creating unique beautiful acts and characters, both in the air and on the ground to bring magic to every event and venue. We want to bring the magic of circus everywhere we go and draw people into our world of dreams and ideas where anything is possible. We use the language of performance to illustrate concepts such as cooperation, trust, teamwork, achievement, harmony, balance, and to create an entire atmosphere of colorful, flexible, graceful, and beautifully sculptural atmospheric characters. We can provide half hour or hour long shows, or provide sets of atmosphere throughout the evening.
We love what we do and bring that positive energy to every venue we perform at. We would love to meet you and hear what kind of entertainment you are looking for to make your event stand out! If you can imagine it, we can create it!
Company Webpage coming soon at www.beautifulfreakentertainment.com
