Contemporary Czech Circus at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh

Two companies, Cirk La Putyka and Losers Cirque Company, will represent the Czech Republic at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Scottish theatre showcase, this year. The first one will have two performances – Runners in Zoo Southside, one of the local theatres, and Boom vol. 2, the project done with the Ukrainian students of the Kyiv circus academy, at the McEwan Hall by Underbelly. Cirk La Putyka will follow its guest performances in 2011 (La Putyka), 2015 (Dolls), and 2017 (Batacchio). The Czech Republic will be also represented by Losers Cirque Company and the Thalia Award laureate Radim Vizváry. They will bring a fresh mix of acrobatics and pantomime called Heroes. The 75th Edinburgh Fringe Festival will take place on 5-29 August 2022.

“It is a great honor for us, all the more that the project Boom with Ukrainian students of the circus academy was found by the organizers and they approached us with an offer to participate,” says Rosťa Novák Jr., the head of the company. “However, we know from the past guest performances that having a performance at the Fringe Festival requires a lot of preparation in terms of technical issues, production and promotion so that we can draw the audience’s attention among thousands of other performances,” says Rosťa Novák Jr.

Boom vol. 1

The motion and contemporary circus production of Runners was created in 2021 with an international cast directed by Rosťa Novák Jr. and Vít Neznal. The performance was inspired by running and time with a unique stage design featuring a huge treadmill that was tailor-made in Great Britain and you can see it at Jatka78 in Prague and several festivals, including Colours of Ostrava in July.

Boom vol. 2 is a sequel of a one-off performance that put together young Czech actors, dancers and acrobats from the Cirk La Putyka’s Young Bloods project and the students of the Kyiv Academy of Theatre and Circus directed by Rosťa Novák Jr. in March. Cirk La Putyka managed to get the students safely to Prague immediately after the war started. The rehearsal of Boom which premieres in September 2022 at Jatka78 originally started with the members of Young Bloods only this February. The show aims to explore the values and dreams of this generation and show the explosion of positive energy hidden in it.

Losers Cirque Company: Heroes

Heroes offer a combination of sophisticated acrobatic tricks by Losers and Radim Vizváry’s accomplished pantomime. Vizváry has worked with them for many years, helping the company find more artistic solutions and blur the lines between the genres. Vizváry is currently an artistic director of Laterna Magika and participated in the world exhibition Expo 2020 in Dubai.

“When we started with Losers, the festival in Edinburgh, the biggest art festival of its kind in the world, was our dream. I am proud that we can eventually go there with a great performance of Heroes,” says Petr Horníček, the head of Losers Cirque Company. “I believe that our performance will be successful with both the audience and jury,” he adds.

Main photo: Runners, © Petr Chodura