FLOTSAM! is a troupe of musicians, circus performers, and puppeteers traveling on a ramshackle raft, giving free performances in riverfront towns along the way. Since 2019, we have performed for tens of thousands of people across fifteen states. Our tours have taken us down many rivers, including the Sacramento, the Ohio, and the Mississippi. In 2025, we traveled from Buffalo to New York City to help celebrate the bicentennial of the Erie Canal. This year, we are traveling up the Illinois Waterway from St. Louis to Chicago. In future years, we hope to bring our floating circus to the rivers and canals of Europe - and eventually all over the world.
MEET OUR 2026 TROUPE:
JAN DAMM is a circus artist, juggler, and clown who has spent two decades bringing magic to street corners, big-top tents, opera houses, and cruise ship stages. Originally from Augusta, Maine, Jan began performing professionally at age 11 as a children's magician and juggler. After graduating from Bard College, he continued his training at the San Francisco Circus Center. Jan has toured with Clowns Without Borders, joining relief trips to Haiti, Indonesia, Lebanon, and Greece, and his work has taken him from Alaska to Bahrain, London to Hong Kong. He has appeared on David Letterman and The Today Show, and career highlights include work with Cirque Mechanics, Teatro Zinzanni, and Ringling's 2023 revival of The Greatest Show on Earth. Jan lives in Brattleboro, Vermont with his wife Ariele and their two children.
Jan Damm on Instagram
SHANNON GRAY has spent the last 18 years exploring the intersection of movement, creativity, and the natural world through circus arts. This lifelong passion has gifted her circus homes up and down the West Coast and reconnected her with her birth city, Montréal. Some of her favorite performing memories include touring with Shoestring Circus, collaborating with musicians in the lofts of Montréal, and hanging from a 100-foot zipline above the Pacific Ocean. Driven by feeling and a desire for deep connection, Shannon strives to develop work that stems from the personal to touch the collective. When she isn't in the air, she lives in a little cottage in Bolinas, California with her two blind cats, mentoring teenagers in aerial arts and general badassery.
www.shannongray.com
NICOLE "NIKKI" LAUMB
followed a winding vocational journey to truly run away with the circus. What started on a goat farm in California after a term with AmeriCorps blossomed into a full-time life of performing, writing, directing, and perfecting the art of making her parents mildly concerned. Raised in Washington state and earning a degree in Journalism, Nikki specializes in character acting, Spanish web, and sideshow stunts. She has toured with The Venardos Circus, Circus Osorio, spent eight seasons with Flynn Creek Circus, and performed with the Bellingham Circus Guild as both a performer and co-artistic director. In 2022, she co-founded Shoestring Circus, a traveling show based out of Bellingham, WA, where she also pilots the marketing efforts. Being part of Flotsam has only fueled her obsession with possibility—because once you fall for the circus, there’s really no going back.
Nikki on Instagram
MIRIAM HACKSAW is a queer mixed Malayali-American fiddler, banjoist and rhythm bones player based in New Orleans. She tours nationally as a solo artist, as well as in the traditional music collective Blowgun, and was the founder of old time punk band Foraging and the Rattling Bones. Miriam is known for reinterpreting tunes from Kerala, India, passed down from her Malayali family through American fiddle and banjo, and has appeared on the old time podcast Get Up In The Cool with Cameron DeWhitt. Miriam and her sibling Rye released a demo of pan-american fiddle tunes recorded during
the episode. Her debut EP “The Lupine” was released in fall of 2024. You can
follow Miriam on all social media platforms by searching @miriamhacksaw
Miriam Hacksaw on Bandcamp
RYE OOMMEN is a multi-instrumentalist and educator based out of New Orleans. They currently play pandeiro for the project Blowgun, drum kit for the Brazilian-MPB inspired quintet Lapis and 7-stringed guitar for the antifascist samba collective Samba do Povo. Oommen studied jazz performance for drums and guitar at Loyola University New Orleans ultimately receiving their BA in Latin American Studies. They also studied Portuguese in São Paulo, Brazil, and after completing their language program continued to live in São Paulo studying Brazilian music. Oommen is one of the co-founders of NOCMS (New Orleans Cooperative Music School) a worker owned cooperative music school in New Orleans. Oommen also tours and performs with their sibling, Miriam Hacksaw and joins them on Flotsam River Circus for this first time this summer.
Rye Oommen on Instagram
NOAH PIERCE was born before the internet and grew up fishing and making forts in what was left of the woods as the bulldozers of dreams snarled in the distance. Half a lifetime ago, he dropped out of art school to run away with the circus, and he hasn't stopped making art since. He has worked in many capacities for many shows including Circus Smirkus, Big Apple Circus, Kaiju Big Battel, and Cirque du Soleil. Noah’s belief in the power of art has led him to some interesting work as a carpenter, sculptor, illustrator, designer, printmaker, musician, author and teacher. In 2024, Noah released the illustrated children’s book “Little Hopkins and the Big Scribble” and subsequently started the Decoder Ring Circus for story-time activity readings. He hails from the Northeastern coast and is excited to join the Flotsam crew, combining his love of the water with his love of traveling shows!
Noah Pierce on Instagram
KALAN
SHERRARD (aka enormousface) is a slime mold who lives in a (w)hole in the void. xE has toured 60+ countries performing Ontological Anarchist Puppet Shows, organizing GarbageFest, and doing public intervention "Not-Happenings". A founding member of Flotsam since 2018, Kalan is a Jim Henson Foundation grantee, a member of the Creatures from the Hole film and poetry Collective, and a student of Comparative Literature. New York Magazine
describes xErr as "NYC's Most Avant-Garde Nihilist Subway Performer". xE is currently working on a puppet production of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and is moving towards opening an Eco-Art Institute in Cascadia.
www.enormousface.com
JUSTIN
THERRIEN has 17 years of experience in the entertainment industry with a focus on traveling tent circuses. He began his performing career as a juggler in Bellingham, WA, gradually expanding his repertoire to include sword swallowing, character work, comedy writing, magic, and object manipulation. He is a co-founder and tent boss of Shoestring Circus, a Bellingham-based traveling show. He has toured with Zoppé Circus, American Crown Circus & Circo Osorio, Circo Exelaris, The Venardos Circus, and Flynn Creek Circus. Justin played the principal role in 42 Feet with the touring theater company Cirque Mechanics and appeared on Broadway in Slava’s Snowshow. Justin was part of the original Flotsam cast in 2019, and we’re thrilled to have him back.
www.justintherrien.com
JASON
WEBLEY is a musician based outside of Seattle. Beginning as
a street performer in the late 90s, Webley spent years traveling the world
building an international cult following with his songs and stories. Armed with an accordion, a
guitar, a porkpie hat and a plastic vodka bottle full of pennies, he
has performed in over forty countries and released a pile of records. These days he is the captain and chief organizer of Flotsam River Circus. His qualifications include growing up fantasizing
about floating down rivers on rafts, and being the only two-time winner of the
"Boat Most Likely to Kill Pilot" award at the Camp Tipsy Rotten Boat
Building Contest.
www.jasonwebley.com
SARI
BREZNAU is a music director, stage-craftsperson, and
multi-instrumentalist known for her work with Future Fridays, Beats
Antique, Cafe Nordo, Moonshine Revival Tent, Cherdonna, and the
Singing in the Rain Family Choir. She was a long-time member of
Seattle's beloved performance collective, Circus Contraption and
trumpeter/percussionist in the Balkan brass ensemble, Orkestar
Zirkonium. She is currently music director of the UP UP UP Crane Truck
Circus, and composer of the interactive musical "Venus and the Vixens." A founding member of Flotsam River Circus, Sari will be rejoining the band to finish our tour for our last week around Chicago.
Sari Breznau on Instagram