Festivals also played an important role in the domestic scene. Cirkopolis offered up an ambitious Czech showcase in inaugural biennial form, Ostrava-based Cirkulum rethought street theatre in the form of a covered winter event, the festival map was boosted by stalwarts such as Ostrava’s MOVE Fest, Pilsen’s Žonglobalizace, Trutnov’s Cirk-UFF, Český Krumlov’s Meandry, Prague’s Nuselské Dvorky festival, Arena, Za Dveřmi, Letní Letná, and Théseova Loď, plus Nonverbálno No.1, a street festival in the capital city organized by the Academy of Performing Arts (HAMU) nonverbal theatre department.
At the limit of their powers…
Contemporary circus ensemble Cirk La Putyka, headed up by Rostislav Novák Jr., passionately threw itself into a reflection on the relationship between elite sport and circus in their long-awaited project St.art. It delved into this arena of all-consuming obsessions and explored this competitive environment, with a particular focus
on performance. The large interdisciplinary team created an effective multigenre, audiovisual piece, deepening the ensemble’s extensive repertoire of family-focused yet universal themes. Above any other considerations, free from elevated expectations, the desire for dramaturgical cohesiveness, or a deeper metaphor, the project pays tribute to sporting heroes from antiquity to the present day, calling for a renewed focus on physical activity and highlighting mental harmony. It places mental health front and centre, viewing physical self-improvement as an act of discipline and grit, whilst also pointing to constant self-doubt and self-destruction.
Losers Cirque Company decided to prepare for the end of the world with their cabaret piece Armagedon: Poslední derniéra (“Armageddon: The Very Last Show”). Among other issues, the piece lightly touched on self-sacrifice within the cultural sector. The performance used hyperbole and dark humour to depict artists who, despite their impending doom, continue to perform, as if the need to entertain the public is greater than their self-preservation instinct. Behind the circus virtuosity, cabaret frivolity, and grotesque scenarios lay an almost critical reflection of a profession in which constant preparedness, performance, and dedication to the craft are considered a given. Losers’ second premiere of the season also developed the variety-show format. Cirkus Bazaar builds on the motif of a flea market auction where, naturally, acrobatic displays and even performers themselves are sold alongside unwanted goods. Overall, it felt like a collection of well-known and less-well-known circus acts but was missing a more pronounced internal arc and thematic through-line.
Ostrava based BoCirk situates most of their productions at summer open-air festivals, including their most recent premiere NaTři (“OnThree”). Yet in January, they presented a large-scale scenic concert Vzdušná symfonie (“Symphonia Aeralis”) in the Gong auditorium within the Dolní Vítkovice complex. The collaboration with the Camerata Janáček of the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, led by Pavel Doležal, made a convincing argument that the decentralization of contemporary circus not only lies in the regional distribution of productions, but particularly in the creation of distinctive artistic platforms with their own infrastructure and transparent ambitions. The project simultaneously confirmed BoCirk’s systematic work with the next generation of artists, whose artistic range has expanded in recent years, both in quality and scale.