The SuperHero Circus Academy was founded by Danya Xena of the Acro SuperHeroes. In addition to offering Partner Acrobatic intensives all over the world, with different head coaches and different focuses, the Academy also offers the Acro and Social Justice Teacher Training.  

 

Partner Acrobatics with a Social Justice Conscience 

A major goal of the SuperHero Circus Academy is to address and discuss the issues that take place in the world, and the issues that take place in our Acro communities.  We explore power dynamics, how they play out, and what we can all do about them.

 

 

STRUCTURE:

The teacher training has 3 main components.  All three must be completed to be eligible for certification. 

 

PART 1 - PRE-COURSE WORK 

Exploration, Reflection and Sharing on 10 Main Social Justice themes. (Details of which are shared once you have registered for the course). 

 

 

PART 2 - CONTACT  

Dates and length of time depends on which training you register for.

 

 

PART 3 POST-COURSE: 
Personalised Project.

 

FOR UPCOMING TEACHER TRAININGS CLICK HERE

 

 

 

CERTIFICATION:

On completion of this course, successful participants will receive a certification through the SuperHero Circus Academy. This is NOT a 'participation only' based teacher training (as in by paying your fees and participation fully or partially you automatically receive certification). Participants must complete the Pre-Course Work, before the course starts, and must successfully complete, reflect and report on their post-course project in order to receive certification. 
Participants that do not adequately complete all components of the course will not receive certification. 

 

 

 

PRE-REQS, APPLICATION & FEES

Be sure to check-out the prereqs, online application form & fees; space is limited to 12 participants to be sure to get your prereq video and application forms in soon!

Please Note: All TTs require registration 10 weeks before the start of the contact time, and will only go forward once 8 people are registered.

 

LEAD INSTRUCTOR:

Danya Xena of the Acro SuperHeroes leads the Acro and Social Teacher Training. Danya has been a full-time traveling acro teacher for many years. 

 

As an Acro teacher, she creates supportive, safe, collaborative and fun learning environments.  With a focus on dynamic acrobatics, she encourages everyone’s inner Super Heroes by offering a community feeling with great progressions and awesome spotting.   As a mid-weight acrobat she is both a base and a flyer, and as such, has a great understanding of both sides of the practice.

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She has traveled extensively across North America teaching in over 100 communities.  She has collaborated in events such as AcroLicious, AcroTopia, the Canadian Acro Intensive, and the Acro Teachers Super Charge and taught at many of the large Acro festivals including: Divine Play, AcroLove, Philly Phlight, New York Acro Fest, AcroShare, Vancouver Acro Fest, AcroYoga Unity Festival & Fete Nationale d’Acroyoga, VivAcroYoga, Dutch Acro.

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Danya co-founded the Acro SuperHeroes, the SuperHero Circus Academy, the Canadian Acro Intensive, and founded FemPower Acro.  Danya is certified as both a Partner Acrobatics and Acro Revolution Teacher and attended 10 weeks of Pitch Catch Circus in 2016.  Danya contributes to Pitch Catch Circus as a diversity consultant, offering diversity, power and privilege lectures.  

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Danya brings with her a career in adult education, coaching and facilitation, a deep passion for social justice, and a Masters degree in Diversity Studies with a focus on pedagogy (the art and science of teaching).  She has volunteered with refugee settlement and sponsorship programs in Canada, lead health and wellness programs in the corporate sector in South Africa, and contributed both as a researcher, educational tool development and academic writer in the areas of diversity, race and social justice in academia in South Africa.  All of her education, life, and work experiences to date make her a perfect candidate for offering this teacher training which brings together her main two passions: Acro and Social Justice.

 

"Justice is what love looks like in public" Cornel West

 

 

The Social Justice Framework: 

 

This Teacher Training will address Social Justice, Power, Privilege and Oppression.

 

We will explore how power, privilege, and discrimination take place in the world and in our Acro communities and partnerships.

• From an individual, interpersonal, group, community, structural, systemic perspectives. We have all been socialized into a socially unjust world; to commit to social justice includes committing to a lifelong individual journey, of learning, reflecting, unlearning and growing to continue to undo the internalized privilege and internalized oppression that we continue to live in.  

• Intersectionality, we are all made up of multiple identities. The work we do must always be informed by our intersectional positionality.

• Social injustice plays out between people and within groups, this happens in all areas of life, including our acro practices and communities. 

• Ultimately inequality is perpetuated not only through the actions, thoughts, and behaviors of individuals but through the systems and structures of society.  To truly create more just societies and spaces we need to challenge inequalities at these levels. 

 

Social justice work and understanding must be carried out within a historical as well as present, global as well as local contexts. 

 

Wherever you are on your social justice journey, this training will provide an opportunity to deepen your experience, your thinking and provide a space for you to design the ways in which you personally want to bring together the fields of social justice and partner acrobatics.