The “Circulation” festival features world premieres and women creating contemporary circus

Three weekends and six personal stories told in the language of the circus. Three of them are world premieres. All this will be able to be seen, experienced and felt by the spectators of the international contemporary circus festival “Circulation”, which will be held in Lithuania for the eighth time from May 30 to June 16.

“This year, the festival will be as personal as ever, and its theme will be “Biographies”. We want to tell the personal stories of the performers in various languages of the modern circus. We have always encouraged getting to know artists, and this program invites you to do so as deeply as possible. The audience of the festival will be able to see how wide the vocabulary of the circus is, how many different means of expression it can use to tell about itself”, said director Gildas Aleksa, artistic director of the festival.

The festival will present two different performances every weekend – three weekends, six stories told 16 times.

“Three of them are world premieres. This means that thanks to many years of experience and work, we knew which artists would be the most interesting for the Lithuanian audience in terms of their language and ingenuity. We are very happy that they chose our festival for their premieres. Lithuanian viewers will see these performances before viewers from other countries. I think that we really have something to be proud of,” said G. Aleksa, emphasizing that this year’s program was compiled for several years.

Another unexpected moment – only one man will appear in the entire program, so women who create modern circus will present their work at this year’s festival. G. Aleksa says that the modern circus, like other performing arts, very often presents the standard of a young white man: “Last year we had the opportunity to question the Europeanness of the circus, and this year we will show that it does not belong to only one privileged gender. In the future, we hope to disprove the myth that the circus belongs only to the young.”

The group “AcCompany ME”, which also includes the Lithuanian Monika Neverauskaitė, was inspired by the English word “pace”, which means both rhythm and step, as well as rhythmic step. The show analyzes the journey we embark on with another person. With this work, the artist duo aims to leave a positive and heartwarming message. The performance offers a look into the intimate space of relationships: it reveals the teamwork necessary for everything to work… The goal is not to stop, to go together.

Anchored In Air is an innovative aerial acrobatics performance presented by Head Over Wheels, a circus-expanding acrobatic troupe that unites 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.

Gabriela Muñoz (Mexico) will present the performance “Julieta” in Vilnius and Šiauliai. The play tells about a woman with a lot of experience and quirks, and at the same time about the many nuances that old age brings with it. This visual, non-verbal, one-woman performance of physical theater and clowning deals with the rupture between youth and old age. Whether she’s getting ready to go on a date with her favorite singer on TV, cutting pictures in half to fit exactly where she wants them, smoothing out wrinkles with duct tape, or doing an exercise while skiing covered in olive oil, Julieta explores the different stages of life and that , how our self-image changes and mutates accordingly.

This year, the international festival “Circulation” will take place in Vilnius, Nauja Vilnia, Kaunas, Lapės (Kaunas district), Taurage, Elektrėnai and Šiauliai. The festival, which started eight years ago in Kaunas, expands its geography every year and introduces modern circus not only to the audience of big cities. This is also one of the missions of the festival.

“Circulation” in Lithuania has already brought up a modern circus spectator who understands that the circus is not necessarily entertainment. This is an art that also talks about serious issues: “Our audience is ready to accept serious performances, and not just come to the circus hoping to see somersaults.”

Along with the festival, its educational part is also growing. This year, the educational program offers the audience to get to know the wider contexts of the modern circus. The French circus historian Jean-Michel Guy invites you to a two-day seminar, the essence of which is how to “read” a modern circus performance.

“He will speak with examples, names, and also use the tools of the modern circus. The seminar will help to further evaluate our program not only for this year, but also for past and future years.

We offer a seminar on attracting commercial funds for cultural managers. US cultural operators know this area best, so we invited Elena Siyanko, an American of Ukrainian origin, the artistic director of PS21, a center that combines contemporary circus, dance and theater in New York. She will share her experience on how to maintain a cultural space that is extremely connected to the local community, to present the most famous artists without state or local government funding.

Meetings with artists and discussions are also waiting. In summary, this year there will be a lot of opportunities to get the tools to get to know the modern circus as deeply as possible”, said G. Aleksa.

The full program of the festival can be found at www.cirkuliacija.lt

The festival is financed by: Lithuanian Culture Council, Vilnius City Municipality, Kaunas City Municipality.

The article is in Lithuanian

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