Czech Contemporary Circus 2019-2023

Contemporary Circus 2019-2023 

Art & Adrenaline 

Contemporary circus in the Czech Republic is a balancing act between performances chock full of gymnastic feats and more artistic offerings. On one hand, it creates works with a predominance of high-octane performance numbers, while, on the other, physical adaptability and specificity lead to artistic, minimalist works and even conceptual performances. Productions with an emphasis on narrative, short solos, routines demonstrating virtuosity in a given discipline and a wide range of street theatre and interventions in public space complete the spectrum. The field’s evolution is driven by enthusiasm, which has also led to the creation of leisure programs offering circus education. Prague and regional training centres, along with a considerable number of festivals, of which Cirkopolis, CirkUFF and Letní Letná are the best-loved and most prestigious, form a supple network of opportunities.  

In recent years, culture has experienced moments of blackout, suspension and hibernation at the precise moments that seemed to offer the most promise. Artistic plans had to be adapted from day to day according to the waves of the global pandemic and the changing hygienic restrictions along with other geopolitical calamities.  The pulsing instability of the post-Covid period calls to mind a circus teeterboard that combines danger and risk with courage, strength and gravity with weightlessness, and confidence with ambition and follow in a single moment.  

From Thousands of Spectators to Individuals, Isolated Behind Glass 

In the summer of 2019, the opening of the international festival Letní Letná, the largest new circus event in the Czech Republic, saw thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of spectators gather in the centre of Prague.  They were watching tight-rope walker Tatiana Mosio-Bongonga cross from the Faculty of Law to Letná along a 350 metre-long rope stretched 35 metres above the Vltava River. Mosio-Bongonga successfully managed the crossing, launching the spectacular 16th edition of the festival with her unique feat. The beautiful ride continued with Losers Cirque Company. Having officially announced their existence five years earlier with the successful production, The Losers, they returned with Heroes. Staged by director Daniela Špinar and choreographer and mime Radim Vizváry, Heroes 1 dealt with material linked to the turning points in human life through world-class acrobatics and precise pantomime.  

In 2018, aerialist Eliška Brtnická selected the drained swimming pool in Kasárna Karlín 2 for her production Opticon, a quiet, artistic dialogue. Juggler and dancer Lukas Blaha chose the same location for his site-specific performance Lavabo, 3 which examines the theme of purification and the ritual cleansing of the soul, the body and the floor. This creative feat by the graduate of the Department of Non-verbal Theatre at the Music and Dance Faculty at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, underscored his extreme dedication to non-stereotypical manipulation of everyday objects, along with a fascination with his own body and the possibilities of physical expression in a structured, circumscribed space.  Juggler Filip Zahradnický, a graduate of the Academy of Modern Circus in Copenhagen, emerged as the undisputed personality of Czech circus in February 2020,  when he became the first Czech in history to take part in the prestigious competition Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain (est. 1977), claiming the Académie Fratellini Special Prize and the Special Jury Prize in Paris. His live performance was watched by many in the Czech circus community, who gathered at the theatre La Fabrika for a ball in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the CIRQUEON Center for Contemporary Circus, where Zahradnický got his start. A year later, during the 8th edition of the Cirkopolis festival, 
he presented his full-length solo debut, Collection of Sceptical Pleasures, 4 inspired by surrealist art and conscious use of the polarity between technical and creative juggling.  

Headfirst Into the Pandemic 

Directed by Rostislav Novák Jr., the Czech premiere of Memories of Fools 5 took place on 6 March 2020, literally a few days before the closure of public space. A project with a visionary tagline – “We’re all mad because it’s a mad time” – had over 180 performances at Berlin’s Chamäleon Theatre to its credit. The foundation of this captivating circus mix of theatrical and variety genres is the fairytale story of a boyhood longing to fly to the Moon. Like many others, the production became a “cultural victim” of the newly proclaimed state of emergency and increasingly strict safety measures. Rostislav Novák Jr., the principal of Cirk La Putyka, the most successful Czech contemporary circus ensemble, reacted swiftly to this unexpected event and, along with his team of collaborators, soon organised one of the first online streams of a live performance on social media. During the subsequent months, director Viktor Tauš, Cirk La Putyka and the Jatka78 theatre unified cultural broadcasting in the project Televize Naživo (Television Live), the excellence of which was recognised with a  prestigious Český Lev (Czech Lion) film award, presented by the Czech Film and Television Academy. 

After the first weeks of nationwide quarantine, initiatives such as #kulturunezastavis (you can’t stop culture), #kulturazasklem (culture behind glass), #okenkokultury (window of culture) and #svetloprokulturu (light for culture) gradually developed within the circus environment as a reaction to the enforced isolation. If audiences couldn’t go to the theatre or circus tent, artists could go to them on the street, in courtyards and under the balconies of apartment buildings. They hung silks from trees, turned somersaults on trampolines placed on the back of a moving truck, cartwheeled through squares or opened “windows of culture”, performing in the shop windows of closed bars and cafes or in giant, inflatable bubbles. 

 Because of the closed borders, outdoor summer festivals heralded a period of euphoria for domestic ensembles. During the spring Covid lockdown, Cirk La Putyka rehearsed Kaleidoscope, 6 a playful blend of circus disciplines directed by Maksim Komaro, and set out on a nationwide tour. Similarly, Bratři v tricku (Adam Jarchovský and Václav Jelínek) and their time-tested Běžkařská odysea (Cross-country Skiing Odyssey) enjoyed a very successful ride on the wave of optimism. Squadra Sua, a trio of clowns composed of Roman Horák, Robert Janč and Lukáš Houdek, also found favour with their slapstick comedies, including the flagship performance Happy Hour.  

In her solo Hang Out, 7 aerialist Eliška Brtnická demonstrates an untraditional use of aerial disciplines. She situates herself in quite difficult-to-reach parts of public spaces and the audience watches her as they walk or stand with faces tilted to the sky. Equipped with headphones, they listen to recordings including respondents’ statements on the topic of caution and what is (un)safe, childhood risks and tempting courage. Meanwhile, the acrobat conquers heights, railings, narrow ramps and even perpendicular walls. The audio walk performance, in which Brtnická is something between an aerial acrobat and spider woman, develops in various directions when performed away from her home space in Prague’s KD Mlejn on the roofs and chimneys of brewery complexes in Jihlava or Trutnov. In the performance Fish Eye, 8 Brtnická is enclosed in a large, drained aquarium in a city park, where she explores movement on suction cups placed on the perpendicular supporting glass wall and physically transforms with the help of a piece of building material – a flexible pipe. She resembles an animal observing an enclosed space from different perspectives, an embodiment of Kafka’s hero or a metaphor for vitality during the forced quarantine. 

Cirkus TeTy also produced a work rooted in the instability of the time. Pavla Rožníčková and Veronika Smolková presented Narušení 9 (Disruption) on 20 March 2021 in Prague’s NoD, where, due to hygienic restrictions, it became “the premiere that no one saw live.” The centrepoint of this absurd slapstick is a hanging chair, the main discipline in aerial acrobatics, and the trajectory of events encourages a competitive relationship between two slightly deranged characters who differ from each other in many ways. For its tenth anniversary, Cirkus TeTy also gave itself the gift of an all-female project, Voyerky 10  (Voyeurs) where the artists focus on the intense relationship between a circus career and motherhood.   

No Return to “Normal” 

Cirk La Putyka’s dynamic first decade culminated with the project Cesty 11 (Roads). In the Azyl78 circus tent, which has been operated by a group of artists associated with this ensemble since 2020 and became a refuge for many other companies during the closure of  theatre buildings, centuries of circus history played out in a single evening. The company of over 40 performers highlighted their own ancestral connections. The heirs to the Kludský tradition, nomadic comedy blood and the legendary Czech puppetry families, the Nováks and Kopeckýs, stage a spectacular, visually appealing show, a stunning panopticon of cabaret. This glittering monument to the cohesion and appeal of the art and craft of circus took on a new and even more significant dimension with the arrival of students from the Kyiv Academy of Theatre and Circus Arts following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The renewed premiere on 23 April 2022 was a high point in the support of young war refugees. Despite the two preceding years of uncertainty, the outbreak of armed conflict prompted a strong wave of solidarity in the contemporary circus community, with Cirk La Putyka at the head. Rostislav Novák Jr. had originally planned to examine the “heads down generation”, or Generation Z and proceeded to connect local “young blood” with the newcomers from Ukraine. The result is the scintillating show BOOM vol. 2 12 a captivating presentation of circus skills, dance and, above all, multicultural, respectful dialogue between two groups.  

At the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague, Eliška Brtnická exhibited an introverted purism that combines intentional play with instability, flexibility and fragility in a kinetic art installation. Her production, Thin Skin, 13 combines aerial acrobatic techniques, object manipulation and visual theatre. A work for three performers, Thin Skin concentrates on the relationship between artist and material, human and matter, and subject and object. The natural, well-paced tension creates an atmosphere of ritual, and the permeable boundaries between performance and installation allow both to coexist in equilibrium. 

1 Jaroslav Cemerek: Heroes, direction: Daniela Špinar, Losers Cirque Company, premiere 23. 8. 2019,  Letní Letná, Prague. Three years after the premier in Letná, the performance was presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. 
2 A partially derelict building in the wider centre of Prague, once used by the Czechoslovak and Slovak army.  Since 2017, the outdoor area and newest building have been maintained and run by the Pražské centrum cultural association. 
3 Jana Stárková, Lukas Blaha, Ondřej Menoušek: Lavabo, direction: Jana Stárková, Lukas Blaha, Ondřej Menoušek, premiere 17. 10. 2019, Kasárna Karlín (pool), Prague. 
4 Filip Zahradnický: Collection of Sceptical Pleasures, premiere 8. 2. 2021, Palác Akropolis, Prague. 
5 Cirk La Putyka and Rostislav Novák Jr.: Memories of Fools, direction: Rostislav Novák ml., first performance: 14. 3. 2019, Chamäleon Theatre, Berlin, Germany; Czech premiere 6. 3. 2020, Jatka 78, Prague. 
6 Kaleidoscope, concept and direction: Maksim Komaro, Cirk La Putyka, premiere 9. 6. 2020, Jatka 78, Prague. 
7 Hang Out, concept and direction: Eliška Brtnická, Cirkus Mlejn, premiere 10. 9. 2020, KD Mlejn, Prague. 
8 Fish Eye, concept and direction: Eliška Brtnická, Cirkus Mlejn, premiere August 2021, Letní Letná Festival, Prague. 
9 Narušení, direction: Ondřej Holba, Cirkus TeTy, premiere 20. 3. 2021, NoD, Prague. 
10 Voyerky, direction: Martina Hajdyla Lacová, Cirkus TeTy, premiere 5. 6. 2021, Festival CirkUFF, Trutnov. 
11 Cesty, direction: Rostislav Novák Jr., Cirk La Putyka, premiere 11. 9. 2021, Azyl78, Prague. 
12 BOOM vol. 2, direction: Rostislav Novák ml., Cirk La Putyka, premiere 4. 8. 2022, Jatka 78, Prague and 30. 9. 2022, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, United Kingdom. 
13 Thin Skin, concept and direction: Eliška Brtnická, Cirkus Mlejn, premiere 23. 10. 2022, DOX – Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague.