The Quarks

Elizabeth Finn is the founder, instigator, and creative director behind Quark Circus. She’s an aerialist experimenting with how a nylon fiber can fold and knot to hold up a human body. She performs on silks and straps, and writes compulsively. That is, when she can get away from her day job as a molecular biologist. 

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Elizabeth has been an acrobat since 1991. She competed nationally in partner acrobatics and was a USSAF national champion in 1996. She founded the varsity diving team at the University of Chicago, but when an injury ended her diving career in 2005 she turned to aerial silks. She trained at Aloft Circus Arts in Chicago, and Acrosports and Circus Center in San Francisco, before beginning to teach with Stanford’s Aerial Fabrics program in 2010. While running the Stanford Aerial Fabrics program, she taught for-credit classes, doubled the total classes offered, and added courses in choreography and performance. She moved from there to run, and greatly expand, Ascend Aerial Arts’ program in 2012. Since moving to Bethesda, Maryland, she has taught silks and straps at Trapeze School New York’s Washington, D.C. location. 

Elizabeth was a regular performer with Sweet Spot Aerial Productions (‘Tis the Circus, 2015: straps; Shine a Light, 2016: straps; Smoky Mirrors, 2017: co-writer/director, straps; A Circus Carol, 2017: silks). She has also performed with Streetlight Circus (The Circus in Lines, 2018: straps) and Clowns Without Borders (Take Laughter With You, 2017: straps). Highlights of her freelance career include performing on the National Mall as part of the Smithsonian’s 2017 Folklife Festival, performing on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, and waving at children from a trapeze set up on the White House lawn in 2015.