8th Playwriting Festival

From December 3 to 5, La Central del Circ hosted the 8th Dramaturgy and Scenic Writing Conference. Three days dedicated to talks, reflection panels, and workshops focused on circus dramaturgy.

This edition, curated by artist and dramaturg Antonia Kuzmanić, featured a wide participation of international speakers such as Ivana Vukóvić, and Gaia Vimercati, among others. Catalan artists like Júlia Campistany and Clàudia Mirambell (Eléctrico28) also took part.

“Dramaturgy is a key to creating performance art but also to spectate it. Dramaturgy is indispensable for experiencing the piece. (I deliberately avoid the term “understanding”; because of its connotation to specific knowledge.) Studied, thought-out dramaturgy is responsible for making every piece of performance and art available to (almost) everyone. What I enjoy most as a spectator is when I feel I am led, even if I feel lost in the world of performance (which is), there still can be a strong feeling of being led by performance, and trust that we will make it together till the end. — Antonia Kuzmanić

PROGRAM

Wednesday, December 3

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Staging Room: Practical workshop led by Pau Portabella

Pau Portabella is an artist specialized in multidisciplinary stage creation, with experience in designing circus, theatre, and dance productions, as well as in training performing artists.

During this session, he will guide us on a journey between practice and theory, where we will explore his perspective on directing and writing in contemporary circus. It will be an opportunity to discuss how meaning is built on stage and to learn and apply the tools he uses.
This activity will be conducted in Catalan.

“Use of the Spoken Words and Texts in the Contemporary Circus Performance” led by Ivana Vukóvić / 3 pm – 7 pm (Staging Room) / Activity in English with simultaneous translation into Catalan

How do we use words and texts in predominantly physical performance art? Do we even need them? Do we need them only when we want to make a more narrative piece? Or should we use them only when it’s funny, only as a joke? Do we use them just to make the piece more approachable, or are we just afraid that we will be misunderstood?  Or do you really want to use the words, but do you find them hard to fit or hard to say?

In the workshop “Use of the Spoken Words and Texts in the Contemporary Circus Performance” we will bravely approach texts that you are using or want to use in your circus performances to understand “the why”? Is the text an equal ingredient of the performance, side by side with physical and body language? Does the piece need more or fewer words? Are they a main or side ingredient? What would happen if we completely erase them, or we just let them grow?

Ivana Vuković is a playwright, screenwriter and dramaturg from Split, Croatia, whose work has appeared at all the main theatre venues in Croatia, like Zagreb Youth Theatre (ZKM), National Theatre in Split, the Marin Držić Theatre in Dubrovnik, KunstTeatar, Montažstroj… In her work, she questions various contemporary topics, from Croatia’s housing crisis to the need for artistic solidarity. Her awarded text “55 square metres” Cincuenta y cinco metros cuadrados) has been presented this spring at Teatre Nacional de Catalunya.

Thursday, December 4

“Challenging Dramaturgies,” led by Gaia Vimercati and Thiago Souza / 10 am – 2 pm (Staging Room) / Activity in English with simultaneous translation into Catalan

In recent years, the notion of dramaturgy has entered the circus discourse in Europe and contributed to the legitimation of contemporary circus as an art of creation. However, even when we speak of “new” or “other” dramaturgies in European circus, we historically root this concept in Western theatre, thereby forgetting the impact of this embedded perspective on circus practices and the field.

What we take for granted when we speak about dramaturgy in circus, and what is often left out of the conversation in Europe? Can we look at it from a decolonial perspective? How would that impact the “identity” and “recognisability” of a circus practice in Europe? The goal of the workshop is to explore decolonisation, race, and power relations in the intersections with dramaturgy.

Gaia and Thiago will use the circus as a space for research and critical thinking. They will playfully question these notions, breaking away from hegemonic images and traditional patterns, and proposing to look at what representations might awake from both individual and collective imagination.

Gaia Vimercati is an independent researcher and cultural project manager for Quattrox4, a contemporary circus centre in Milan. She holds an MA in Comparative Literature from Trinity College Dublin (2015). She curated the Italian translation of the Open Letters to the Circus by Bauke Lievens & Sebastian Kann (2024). She delivered the keynote “Queering the Leadership: Against the Myth of a Progressive Circus” at MAD Festival (Antwerp, 2024) and “CARE as a verb, not only as a noun: what have we been actually practising?” together with artist and activist Amanda Homa at Circus Dance Festival (Cologne, 2025).

Thiago Souza is a Brazilian circus artist based in Barcelona who graduated in circus arts from the Flic (Turin), ENCLO (Rio de Janeiro) and Spasso (Belo Horizonte) schools. He also has a degree in Social Communication from UniBH. He is co-author of the Cia Doisacordes, whose first work, “Cá entre”, was circusnext in 2023. He recently participated in the following projects: “Coreografías de la prohibición”, led by Lucía Egaña Rojas (2025) and “Cabaret do pensamento Nonsense” (2025). In 2024 Gaia and Thiago worked together in THE STOLEN HERITAGE, the latest edition of LA PAROLA AI CORPI curated by Gaia Vimercati and Amanda Homa. This experimental research project aims at overcoming the binary between theory and practice(s) in circus, where they investigated decoloniality and questioned privilege through embodied and collective practices.

“The Open Air” led by Clàudia Mirambell Adroher (Eléctrico28) / 3 pm – 5 pm (Staging Room and outdoor spaces) / The activity will be in Catalan, Spanish, and/or English

The Open Air is a workshop for sharing tools and dynamics for working in public space. It draws from the perspective and experience of the collective Eléctrico28, combining action and reflection, body and word.

Our field of research—the public space—is where individuals, animals, plants, inanimate elements, and traces coexist and move through. Observing it closely can offer insights into how we inhabit and relate to our surroundings.

We propose an experience with a participatory dynamic, activating tools of observation, imagination, and embodiment to re-signify the notion of the open air. We start from the place as it is, and from there, we will transgress its order through individual and collective impulses and attentive listening.

Clàudia Mirambell Adroher was introduced to movement and the performing arts at the Dansa de Celrà school. She graduated in Architecture from EPS (Girona) and WSA (Cardiff), and in Choreography and Performance from the Institut del Teatre. She trained in contemporary dance at NSCD (Leeds) and participated in workshops with dancers and creators at various European festivals and schools.

Her creative work includes the site-specific piece Servei de desubicacions 24h, ruta anti-turística; Nada.dora.toda.dorada, adapted as a site-specific work at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion; Laberinto, an experimental short film with a hybrid stage version; SPAM. Only for you, finalist for the Institut del Teatre Award; and Allunatge, maridatge de cuina i moviment, premiered at El Celler de Can Roca. Her piece FAKE YOU was pre-premiered at La Quinzena Metropolitana.

She is a member of the collective Eléctrico28, developing urban intervention projects rooted in everyday life and humor. Some of their notable works include Momentos estelares de la humanidad, [The Frame], and The Place.

Friday, December 5

“VIP (Very Important Places)”, led by Júlia Campistany and Laura Font Gallart / 10 am – 2 pm (outdoor spaces surrounding La Central del Circ) / The activity will be in Catalan

A proposal to explore how public space can transform and reconfigure our artistic practice. Through movement, observation, and presence, we will discover how rhythms, sounds, architecture, and people around us can become both material and driving forces for creation.

We will reflect on our relationship with the unexpected and the unknown, and how these elements can be integrated into scenic writing. The activity is aimed at artists interested in site-specific creation, contemporary circus, and artistic forms that engage in dialogue with the city as a living, unpredictable, and poetic space.

Julia Campistany is a circus artist originally from Alella, currently based in the Netherlands, where she graduated from Codarts Circus Arts. She is a trapeze artist, also a mouth balancer artist with a growing interest in magic nouvelle. She has created several performances so far “It Happens”, “PELUDA” (nominated for circusnext 2023) and “Cirquemetrage”. The inspiration for this workshop comes from her participatory uban walks happening in Rotterdam since 2021.

In VIP, Julia is joined by urbanist Laura Font Gallart, who will provide critical insights into how we move through and interact with urban environments. Her expertise in urban design and spatial analysis will help shape the way we integrate cityscapes into the performance. 

Round table: “The Body as a Living Archive: Memory, Risk, and Overflow in Circus”, with Esther Blazquez, Adelaida Frías – Circ Perillós, Julia Campistany, Clàudia Mirambell Adroher, and Antonia Kuzmanić / 3:00 pm–5:00 pm (Multipurpose Room) / Activity in Catalan, Spanish, and English

We propose a space for dialogue where the body is reclaimed as a political and poetic tool, in order to recover public space as a place of connection and to foster new aesthetic sensitivities that expand how we see and inhabit the city. The discussion draws connections between past and future, bringing the history of circus to life and exploring its boundaries, overflows, and hybridizations with other languages. How can we understand circus as a practice of overflow? What risks does it entail? What forms of freedom or vulnerability can we find in it?

This gathering brings together several generations of circus artists to build a collective narrative shaped by their own voices and experiences—a narrative that revisits forgotten memories, recognizes the gestures that have shaped an invisible genealogy, and at the same time imagines new emerging languages for the circus of today.