The international contemporary circus festival “Circulation” annually brings the most unique creators to various Lithuanian cities, whose performances correspond to the chosen theme of the year. This year it is “Biographies”.
Six performances will be presented in as many as seven different places and will give an opportunity to see how differently modern circus can talk regarding personal experiences. Performances will take place in the center of Vilnius, New Vilnius, Kaunas and Kaunas district, Šiauliai, Elektrėnai and Taurage, where six different stories of circus artists will be told, including three premieres.
Flying wheelchairs, tight glass box
The first weekend of the festival will be opened by the performance “Anchored in Air” from the United Kingdom. An innovative aerial acrobatics performance is presented by “Head Over Wheels”, a troupe of acrobats expanding the boundaries of the circus, connecting artists with and without disabilities.
Their debut performance will invite you into the world of flying wheelchairs, sound imaging and gravity-defying acrobatics, combining circus, dance, text and live music.
One of the artists has a mobility disability, which led to the main goal of the performance – to make it as accessible as possible to all groups of people. In addition to live music, which will be performed by the artists themselves, the performance will also be described with words – this is intended for people with visual disabilities. The blind are invited before the performance touch-tourduring which they will be able to feel the decorations, costumes, chat with the performers and thus experience the modern circus.
Organizers’ photo/”Anchored in Air”
Another performance of the first weekend is the work “Fora” by Brazilian artist Alice Rende. A.Rende’s mono-performance combines two practices of flexibility and illusionism: enterology (the art of folding the whole body into a box that is clearly too small) and escapology (the art of freeing oneself from shackles). Despite the effective techniques, the audience will experience a dreamy, claustrophobic feeling of tightness during the performance.
Plastic acrobatics, called in English contortion, translates into Lithuanian as “rubber”. It is a highly flexible discipline that the artist from Brazil squeezes into a narrow glass box in order to tell the claustrophobic experiences that are recognizable to many, when the pressure of the environment determines the psychological and physical health of a person.
Organizers’ photo/Alice Rende’s work “Fora”
This work was evaluated even before the premiere – the performance “Fora” became the laureate of the European circus authors’ platform “Circusnext”. The show is being staged at various European festivals, but A. Rende fondly remembers how in 2018, together with Lithuanian artists, he created a performance for the balconies and has been in contact with the Cirkuliacijos festival ever since.
Transformation of body, clothing and aerial aerobatic gear
Two premieres will be presented in the second week of the festival. The first one will present a modern interpretation and a discipline rarely used in performances – transformation (English Quick-Change).
The performance “Suddenly: and other ways to change” is a visual exploration of the sensations of transformation. How do we feel when we are overwhelmed by change? The performance, with the help of magic, circus and theater, explores how the continuous process of shedding one’s old layers takes place, and its essence is the grief that accompanies such transformations.
Organizers’ photo/Dora Komenda’s performance “Konstrukt”
Although the origins of the discipline are quickly and efficiently changing dresses or other clothes, the artist Kerttu Pussinen from Finland decided to slow down her illusions and turn it into a story regarding the transformations of her body. After she graduated, doctors diagnosed a form of arthritis that caused pain while doing her job. Later, a more pleasant, but also affecting transformation of the acrobat’s body took place – pregnancy.
The performance was nominated in the “Circusnext” program in 2022-2023.
Motherhood also determined the specificity of the premiere of the second week. Circus artist from Croatia, Dora Komenda, has created three specially damaged apparatuses for the performance “Konstrukt”, on which you are doomed to fall. But you have to climb them once more and once more.
This work, enriched with black humor, turned into D. Komenda’s directorial debut – following conception, three female artists were invited, each of whom specialized in their own damaged apparatus. Such a change turned out to be beneficial for all parties, so the director remembered her architectural education and constructed a precise and aesthetically clean modern circus performance.
Falling is the worst event that can happen on stage to a circus performer, and especially an acrobat. However, in the performance “Konstrukt” it becomes the central axis of the performance, it is a performance regarding failure and the struggle with wrong choices.
The aerobatics used in the show are unstable, unsafe and unusable, but the characters choose to make a stupid attempt to perform and put their best effort into a battle they have already lost, only to be faced with the question of how to accept failure?
Organizers photo/Monika Neverauskaitė’s work “A Measure – Handle With Care”.
Pancakes on stage, clowning from Mexico
Another premiere awaits in the last week. Monika Neverauskaitė, the first professional Lithuanian contemporary circus artist, following many years of working with French circus directors, started her first author’s work “A Mesure – Handle With Care”.
Together with the Italian artist Elena Damasio, the cyr’s circle already familiar to the Lithuanian audience, she is looking for what might be the recipe for a healthy relationship. How much danger, fragility and balance does it need to maintain? That’s what they’re exploring…by baking pancakes live on stage.
One of the sweetest circus performances in Europe will not leave anyone indifferent, especially since seeing two women who are not provoking, but setting an example, talking regarding their relationships is a rare phenomenon not only in Lithuania.
Organizers’ photo/Gabriela Muñoz’s performance “Julieta”
The festival will be crowned by the guest from Mexico, Gabriela Muñoz, with a rarely presented variety of modern circus – clowning. The main character of the performance “Juliet” is a woman, mother, grandmother, recognizable to everyone.
Left alone at home, she tries to juggle memories of the past, a healthy (and not so) lifestyle and complete loneliness. Poetry created by movement alone, expressed by one of the world’s best clowns, will raise a lot of questions regarding the forgotten people in our lives, but will raise even more laughter. It is the humor and cheerful attitude to life in the play that is the pillar that prevents Juliet from breaking.
“Julieta is a free, cheerful, creative, proud and flirtatious soul, a generous woman who taught me a lot regarding life,” says G. Muñoz, director and performer of the play “Julieta”.
The international contemporary circus festival “Circulation” will take place from May 30 to June 6 in Vilnius, Nauja Vilnia, Kaunas, Lapės (Kaunas district), Elektrėnai, Taurage and Šiauliai.
Information regarding the entire program and its delivery time: www.cirkuliacija.lt. You can find tickets to the festival www.bilietai.lt
The festival is financed by the Lithuanian Culture Council, Vilnius City Municipality, Kaunas City Municipality.
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2024-05-11 20:53:06