Cypher Zero is a circus proprietor and producer, entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

, and educator. Zero began his career as a performer in 1995.

Early years

Cypher was born as Michael Aaron Woldow on November 30, 1976 in Evanston Hospital, Evanston Illinois. His mother, attorney Pamela H. Woldow, went on to become Chief Counsel of the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance, and Deputy General Counsel of Pennsylvania under Governor Ed Rendell

Ed Rendell

Edward Gene "Ed" Rendell is an American politician who served as the 45th Governor of Pennsylvania. Rendell, a member of the Democratic Party, was elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 2002, and his term of office began January 21, 2003...

. His father is real estate developer and award-winning journalist Richard Woldow.

Founding New York Circus Arts

After several years of coaching and directing professional artists and shows, Cypher met a blogger at a party in New York City who convinced him to coach her as a recreational student. His experiences with coaching recreational students lead Cypher to develop a new, accessible method for teaching professional quality circus skills to students of varying backgrounds, and eventually founding the New York Circus Arts Academy

New York Circus Arts Academy

The New York Circus Arts Academy is the educational division of New York Circus Arts. The Academy has a flagship campus in New York City, as well as several smaller seasonal and semi-permanent facilities around the Northeast United States....

.

In May 2008, the New York Circus Arts Academy

New York Circus Arts Academy

The New York Circus Arts Academy is the educational division of New York Circus Arts. The Academy has a flagship campus in New York City, as well as several smaller seasonal and semi-permanent facilities around the Northeast United States....

 acquired the assets of Cypher's previous company, FireFly Aerial Acrobatics. The merged companies retained the name New York Circus Arts

New York Circus Arts

New York Circus Arts refers to a company forged by the merger of FireFly Aerial Acrobatics and the New York Circus Arts Academy. The merger is similar to Apple Computer's 1996 acquisition of NeXT Computer Inc., as both companies were founded by the same individual ....

.

Retirement from performing

In March 2008, after performing for 10 years, Cypher announced his retirement to the cast of Takura, a Contemporary Circus Faerie Tale, before the final performance of the run. Cypher explained that he wanted to spend more time developing a national circus training system in the United States, and creating new shows for New York Circus Arts.

Origin of name

Although he performed under the name Cypher Zero as early as 1995, it was not a legal name until 1998. The exact origin of the name "Cypher Zero" is not confirmed. Cypher, on several occasions, attributed it to an epiphany he had while researching the history of number systems at Villanova University

Villanova University

Villanova University is a private university located in Radnor Township, a suburb northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States...

.

Awards and honors

• 2009 - Honolulu International Film Festival Aloha Accolade Award, as Executive Producer of The Making of Takura, a Contemporary Circus Faerie Tale.

• 2008 - Studio 42 Artistic Achievement Award, as founder of New York Circus Arts.

• 2005 - Nominated for a New York Innovative Theater Award for Ellen Stewart
  Ellen Stewart
  Ellen Stewart was an American theater director and producer and the founder of La MaMa, E.T.C. . In the 1950s she worked as a fashion designer for Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel.-Biography:Ellen Stewart was either born in Alexandria, Louisiana or Chicago,...
  
  's play Perseus at La MaMa, E.T.C.
  La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
  La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is an off-off Broadway theatre founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart, and named in reference to her. Located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the theatre grew out of Stewart's tiny basement boutique for her fashion designs; the boutique's space acted as a theatre for...
  
  , Honoree for Outstanding Choreography/Movement, along with Renaurd Gee, Maureen Fleming
  Maureen Fleming
  Maureen Fleming is an American dancer, performance artist, and choreographer from New York City. She studied butoh dance and is known for her meditative, dreamlike solo dances, which include elements of contortion, and in which she often performs unclothed...
  
  , Juliana Lau, Frederico Restrepo and Chris Wild. To this day Mr. Zero is the only choreography Honoree nominated for aerial choreography.

Controversy

Cypher's remarks regarding social programs in the US have been criticized as unpatriotic. His statement in an online blog (since removed), "By providing their citizen's with guaranteed health care, education, unemployment and retirement benefits, many countries have given their artists and crafts people and edge in the world market place which is very difficult to for US artists and craftspeople to compete with. The matter is not skill, it is bottom line. How can you ask a US artist to compete in the world job market against someone with at least equal training, who will work for 25+% less money? US artists lose out by having to pay for things that their brethren in other countries receive through social programs. We cannot fault US artists for not succeeding in finding work internationally, we need to support them at home first.", has also been viewed as a sideways claim of unfair competition practices against Canadian and European organizations which his company competes for work against.