In service to your art and a better way of life.
A place where you teach the way you want to, and your students leave changed.
For Coaches & Instructors
We ran retreats for years before we built this place, and every lesson from those seasons is poured into it. The rigging came first, then the studio, then the rooms. A turnkey operation, purpose-built around the way coaches actually work.
When you bring a retreat to Airborne Arts, the rigging, the rooms, the food, the transfers, the website, the booking system, the promotion are already taken care of. Our community is the demographic you are trying to reach: aerial and circus students who already do this work. We put a real share of every retreat budget back into marketing yours, and we treat our coaches like guests of honor while they are here. You stay in the nicest room on the property. Recovery is built in.
What's Already Here
The rigging came first. Then the open-air aerial studio set up for silks, hoops, lyra and straps. Then the trampoline, the hand-to-hand training space, the pole. Once all of that was right, the rooms followed. Every choice on the property was made by people who knew what teaching this work actually requires.
The rigging is at full height. The studio looks out at the Pacific. The trampoline catches the morning sun through the canopy. The rig is rated and maintained by the people who teach on it, and the crash mats are built for the work that gets done on them. Every piece of it was planned, purpose-built, and proven across seasons of real retreats.
Inside the Studio
The aerial deck is the heart of the property, and it is set up to be reconfigured for whatever you teach. Static points for fixed apparatus. One-to-one dynamic points for silks, hoops, straps. Four-to-one dynamic points for the bigger swings. All rated, all maintained, all routinely re-engineered by the people who use them.
The deck is never quite finished. We are constantly improving it based on what the last coach needed. This coming year we are adding fold-up pole platforms that roll out of the way, so the same deck can host pole alongside aerials in the same session. If your discipline needs something specific, tell us early. There is a good chance we are already partway to building it.
There are lots of places to teach. Only one of them sounds like an 1,800-foot waterfall.
A Simple Split
A retreat is a partnership. You bring your craft, your community, and the shape of the week. We bring the infrastructure that makes hosting feel like teaching again instead of project management. Here is how the work tends to fall.
The Place Itself
Behind the property the mountains rise. In front of it the Pacific begins. Between the two sits Diamante, an 1,800-foot waterfall and the second-tallest in Costa Rica. You can hear it from the deck. The air here moves a certain way, the light changes shape through the day, and the rain when it arrives makes the jungle smell like something out of someone else's life.
Toucans show up at breakfast. The sun fills the valley pink at five. Your students train in this. They eat their meals looking at it. They come back the next year and bring friends.
Proven Track Record
Some of the most respected voices in aerial and circus arts have already chosen Airborne Arts as their retreat home. A few of the retreats we have hosted in past seasons:
Fly in Paradise
with Jared Shanks and Toffy Paulweber. Flying trapeze and partner acrobatics.
Open Aerial Residency
Multi-discipline aerial residency.
Hand to Hand Acrobatics
Partner-acrobatic intensive.
Sustain: Aerial Arts
Aerial arts immersion.
Altitude & Agency
Aerial arts retreat.
Coming up in 2027
Coaches return because their students do. Jared Shanks and Toffy Paulweber are back with Flying in Paradise in February. Magdalena Weinbeer and Theresa Lessmann open OOPS! Aerial Hoops and Loops in March. Cirque du Soleil's Lowri Rhiannon closes the season with an aerial hoop retreat.
Who You're Partnering With
A circus center founded by people who spent their lives in the air, and then built the place they wished had existed when they were the ones traveling.
Co-Founder, Head Coach
Christine competed at the top of aerial sport for years. Seven consecutive National Championships, an Olympic appearance, an induction into the USSA Hall of Fame, a tour with Paul McCartney. Then she did the harder thing, which is teach others how. Her coaching philosophy is what underlies everything that happens here. Technique opens every door.
Co-Founder, Rigger
Jonathon co-founded Trapeze School New York, one of the largest circus schools in the United States, and spent decades rigging, coaching and building before he bought this property and started over. He still rigs. The pavilion, the rigging, the studio, the rooms, all of it came out of his hands. So when you tell us you need a wider mat or a different lighting setup or a new dynamic point, we say yes and we mean it.
Let's plan your retreat
Send us your dates, your discipline, your group size, and your dream version of how the week unfolds. WhatsApp is the fastest way to reach Jonathon directly, and most of these conversations start there. We come back inside 48 hours with a proposal that covers what is included, what we recommend, and what your students will pay. Then we get out of your way and let you teach.
Message Jonathon on WhatsAppPrefer email? Use the contact form and we will follow up the same day.