cultural
The 21st edition of the Salzburg Winter Festival is taking place in the Salzburg Volksgarten. The circus festival consistently brings new companies that combine acrobatics, poetry and humor. This year’s winter festival is also a premiere for the new boss, the 58-year-old Frenchman Robert Seguin.
Five international circus companies, a Salzburg production and two evenings that take a kaleidoscopic look at the local circus scene: After two years of corona-related restrictions, the Salzburg Winter Festival is back to its usual size. The 21st edition of the festival for contemporary circus arts will feature a total of 67 performances over 31 days and three venues.
New circus companies
“All invited companies are coming to the Salzburg Winter Festival for the first time,” promised Robert Seguin, Managing Director of the festival, on Thursday at the program presentation. The festival, which will take place from December 1, 2022 to January 8, 2023, will open with the production “Ballet” by Zirkus FahrAwaY. In addition to tightrope walking, floor acrobatics, somersaults, juggling and a wild palette ballet, the young Swiss company also offers a lot of music from self-made instruments. A production that will appeal to young and old alike, Seguin said. The Swiss come to Salzburg with their own tent.
Sawdust snow
The Circus Ronaldo is coming from Belgium with the play “Sono io?”. It is a sensitive show that deals with the relationship between father Danny and son Pepijn Ronaldo. The two are the sixth and seventh generation of an artist family. The Compagnie Le P’tit Cirk from France shows the show “Les Dodos” created in 2017. Michael Zandl, David Eisele and Kolja Hunek combine a mixture of circus arts and crafts in their production “Sawdust Symphony”. It’s snowing sawdust, the three artists told with a lot of humor regarding human creativity and manual tragedies, announced Seguin.
The American acrobat and clown Jamie Adkins and the Salzburg circus club Mota round off the colorful programme. A look at the local circus scene is also given over two days. Curator Arne Mannott announced that there would be a varied program with dance, acrobatics and performance dedicated to current issues such as communication and trust.
Challenge logistics
The logistics will be a big challenge this time. The three companies in the Volksgarten will bring their own tents, so there will be set-up and dismantling during the festival when the productions change. “We have five different configurations in the Volksgarten during the festival, which requires very good planning,” said Seguin. Incidentally, the festival did not increase ticket prices. It is a major concern that the winter festival remains affordable, explained the managing director.
