Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan Moreaux Pentecost.
Hi Megan, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My story is long. I’ve lived a lot of life in my 42 years, but i’ll try to keep it brief and to the point. This might bounce around a bit. I grew up in Los Angeles in the entertainment industry, but had many struggles with being severely abused, abandoned, and neglected, which made me become a fighter for what I love. I was in show choir all through high school and graduated from Burbank High School. I’ve always loved performing, although not for the usual reasons. I absolutely do NOT like attention. Despite the extreme abuse I went though, I now LOVE people and so enjoy the joy I can bring to people’s lives through entertainment. An escape from the mundane, from stress, from sorrow, and bring them into joy, love, and hopefully inspiration. That’s why I put so much into it. That’s why I love performing. Not only for the families, friends, and strangers who come to see my performances, but also for the jobs I get to provide for my beloved friends. I worked as a singer/ dancer for Disney, Universal, Paramount, Cirque Dreams, was a touring solo artist for many years, and sang background vocals for many artists. After being miraculously rescued from trying to take my own life in 2008, I finally found the unconditional love I’d been searching for my whole life in Jesus. Over the next 18 years I helped lead worship with Nashville Life Music, Cece Winans, Pastor Todd Coconato for Remnant Revival Church, Pasadena International House of Prayer, among others. After a while in the industry, I started really not liking what the music industry had become, so in 2017 I quit and joined the literal circus instead. I began learning cirque aerial arts and grew such a passion for it and for the community of people in the cirque world. In 2020 when the whole world shut down, all the shows I was in for Cirque Dreams closed temporarily, so I knew I had to get a job. I got a job in Gallatin, TN teaching aerial arts, vocal lessons, and dance at Centerstage Performing Arts Academy. I always thought I’d hate teaching, but quickly discovered how rewarding it is. I have such a passion for the people I teach. It is another way I get to help inspire people to fight for what they love, grow their passions, and pursue the life they dream of. So, when the shows started back up, I decided to stay and teach instead. I love my students so much, I just couldn’t see myself leaving them. But I still loved and missed the performing aspect. So with my best friend and fellow teacher at the studio, Ella Hunter, we started In Flight Entertainment Productions. It honestly started after we saw some extremely talented friends of ours audition and get rejected from a show they wanted to be a part of, for reasons we whole heartedly disagreed with. So, in our usual fashion, we took action and started our own company and invited them to be our first performers in our company. They got to perform their duo piece for a Centerstage fundraiser and it was absolutely stunning. I was so overjoyed getting to watch them utilize the hard work they had put into their training and performance. In Flight took off and Ella and I started working hard to be able to realize this opportunity not only for ourselves and our two friends, but so many other brilliant performers who just needed to be given a chance and an opportunity. Now, after much inner healing, relational healing, counseling and learning how to fight, move forward, and most importantly love people: I have learned how to say “no” to distractions and focus on the things that matter most. I am an ordained worship pastor for Remnant Revival Church with Pastor Todd Coconato in Hendersonville, where we focus on helping deeply wounded people realize how loved they are by us and most of all by Jesus. No matter who you are or what you’ve done. you matter and you are loved. I teach aerial arts at Centerstage where I have the honor of being the aerial director over the whole aerial arts department, and co-owner of In Flight Entertainment Productions, performing all over Tennessee, elevating corporate events, parties, performing full production cirque shows with our own flare, adding in multiple styles of dance, live music, and specialty arts, as well as our weekly residency at Plaza Mariachi in Nashville where we have a free family friendly dinner show on Saturdays at 7pm (usually, but sometimes varies around that time). One of the most fun bonuses is I get to include my wonderful husband, Daniel Pentecost in all of this. He has started learning aerial arts as well so we can have fun doing duo acts together. Everyone, make sure you marry someone who believes in and supports your dreams! We are now working on / saving up for our next big dream / venture…. our very own aerial barn on our property in Portland Tn. We are at the very beginning stages but are so excited for this dreaming stage. Everyone be on the lookout for when we open it because it will have so many fun and exciting surprises and amenities included in it, it will be a dream! Thank you for taking the time to hear my story of overcoming pain, trauma, and struggles and into a life of dreams, joy, and most of all love. I hope everyone who reads this knows you are so important, loved, and purposeful, and you can fight and overcome anything. You are not a victim of your circumstances.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
So many struggles. I mentioned a few of them already, but emotional struggles are often the most difficult to overcome. But if I’ve done it, so can you! To be slightly more detailed, I was severely abused from the time I was 6 months old, until I was 23. When it’s all you know as normal, you allow it unknowingly most of the time because it’s familiar. I have a long list of abusive relationships, financial struggles, emotional struggles, as I had no self worth or even an understanding of that. It wasn’t until after I tried to take my own life, but was miraculously rescued by something that pulled me by my shoulders out of the water to a standing position, when I was home alone with just my pug, that I finally learned how to heal, learned my self worth and value, and became passionate about helping others discover how wonderful and valuable they are through the avenue I’ve been given, through performance arts and music. Financial struggles have been a huge struggle many times, but my generation has grown up in the “gig economy” and when we realize that and are willing to work and hustle, we can overcome our finances. I’ve learned to have many side ventures to make money in order to finance the dreams I’ve had and experienced many financial miracles.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’ve had A LOT of side quests over my life, but the constants have been singing and dancing. I also am a songwriter and have started digging in to thinking of new ways to incorporate all my passions together. In the cirque arts world, I specialize in aerial silks and aerial hammock, and to try to set myself apart, I sing while doing aerial arts. In Flight puts on specialized themed shows where we lean in heavily to story telling, so i’ll often sing a character driven song while in the silks to add a little something different to our show. I am most proud of the uniqueness we bring to the performance world. Always trying to come up with new ideas, not just for myself, but for our performers. We have a performer who plays violin while in the silks or hanging by his knees on a chandelier, juggles and plays violin on stilts, plays live music while dancing, an artist who is a ballerina on pointe then does a silks routine or climbs the Spanish web while on pointe, etc. We are always trying to bring new surprises.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
Over the next 5-10 years, my hope is for In Flight to expand and for my performers to have more gigs and more shows, for the aerial barn to start and be successful and expand, to be fully self employed and have the honor and privilege of being able to provide jobs for others in the area of their passions. I hope to be able to put on full production performances at the aerial barn and include things no other place has, so people will come from all around to experience our one of a kind shows, knowing to expect excellence, and to be inspired in their own lives after their experience with us.
Pricing:
- We always try to find ways to make our shows accessible to everyone. Families, artists, everyone no matter their economic status. That’s why we take time to apply for grants and funding, as circus arts are very expensive because of the cost of overhead. We have to have individual performers insurance, special to circus arts specifically, our apparatuses and equipment are often thousands, to tens of thousands of dollars to purchase and maintain. We haven’t received any grants or funding yet but we won’t give up and are hopeful!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.InFlightEP.com
- Instagram: @InFlightEP
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/inflightep/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@InFlightEntertainmentProductio/videos
