Cirkuliacija 2021 

The International Contemporary Circus Festival “Cirkuliacija”, after a two-year pandemic break, returned to a live meeting. On June 6-13 days the festival with the theme “Private Zone (s)” presented works by guests from Finland, Sweden, Estonia and Spain, as well as the latest performances by Lithuanian contemporary circus artists. These performances in Kaisiadorys, Kaunas, Smalininkai and Raseiniai revealed various circus disciplines in the air and on the ground with all the energy, humour and will also invite everyone to talk about serious topics. 

On the first summer weekend of this year, under the hot Kaisiadorys’s sun, the festival was opened by two premieres – works by contemporary circus artists created in Lithuania. Kestas Matusevicius (Lithuania), Aino Mäkipää (Finland) and Lyla Goldman (USA) pay attention to clothes and their stories during the performance “Clothes and Us” where the family talks about the sustainable fashion movement and revives used clothes. The performance, which combines different circus disciplines: Chinese pole, air silk, clowning and juggling, was shown in the festival program in Kaunas and Raseiniai this week. The performers invite the audience to bring their unused clothes and thus help them become the characters of the show.

Actor and circus artist Dziugas Kunsmanas and “Teatronas” presented the latest movement and circus performance “Mood” in the program of the festival “Cirkuliacija”. The artist began to create this performance at the beginning of the quarantine, thinking about what happens to the performers’ bodies when they get stuck in quarantine. The performance combines two contrasting things – a circus and a depressed body, which can‘t move. The artist is looking for answers – what it means to be a circus performer in a private space and try to present it as a circus trick as a moral break. The performance met audience in Kaunas, Smalininkai and Raseiniai.

The first foreign guests of the festival are artists from Sweden – the troupe “ENT Company” and their performance “Plast”. Three artists Hege Eriksdatter Østefjells, Karoline Aamås and Love Kjellssonas are creating images that encourage reflection on ecological issues by using simple tools such as plastic and ice on stage. Performance of live music and air acrobatics for the Lithuanian audience was in Kaunas, Smalininkai and in Raseiniai.

Two energetic humour performances – Finnish chaos in the female troupe Sisus Sirkus performance “Mosh Split” and a male troupe “eia” from Spain with performance “InTarsi” was in the programme.

Photos by Donatas Ališauskas