Trànsits

HERTZ is the first long-duration creation by Cie Dissociée, following Pacemaker, and explores the themes of fakirism and clowning. Released in February 2024, this piece, suitable for all audiences from the age of 10, integrates theater, performance, and installation. At the center of the stage, a pile of crushed glass measuring 7 meters by 5.5 meters, weighing over 800 kg, interacts with dance movements and acrobatics. The performance questions the limits we impose on ourselves, addressing themes such as pain, resilience, and the boundaries of the impossible. By intertwining fakirism and clowning, HERTZ highlights human contradictions, inviting the audience to embrace their weaknesses and discover a more authentic and resilient humanity.

Marcelo Nunes is an author and performer whose artistic career is based on a constant search for novelty, influenced by his experiences in Brazil and Europe. His practice focuses on three techniques: trapeze, clown, and fakirism, exploring the wild nature of humanity. Since his first work, Pacemaker, Nunes has expressed his worldview through a unique artistic language. On stage, he uses the body as a tool for communication, creating an authentic dialogue with the audience. Through his creations, he seeks to foster a poetic resonance between the artist and the audience.

The company was born from the union of four multidisciplinary circus artists based in Euskal Herria (Oihane Larraza, Gaspar Illoro, Zoe Aldekoa, and César López). Their aim is to explore the poetics of the rural world to reach a shared sensitivity through the language of circus. Their main disciplines include aerials, juggling, Chinese pole, Cyr wheel, acrobatics, and dance. They met while attending the technical training program at INAC (National Institute of Circus Arts) in 2018, in Portugal. After separating and continuing their professional training independently, the artists decided to reunite and create the show Herrari. Driven by shared interests in contemporary language, they work by taking artistic risks rooted in emotions and sensations to engage the audience.

‘Herrari’

Herrari is an itinerant contemporary circus show that invites us to reflect on natural and rural spaces, which have changed significantly due to human presence and, paradoxically, its absence. It delves into the nostalgia for rural life, sparked by the longing for calm and a sense of community in today’s world. Life in cities is becoming increasingly unsustainable due to factors like gentrification, which disrupts collectivity, stripping places of their identity and further severing our connection with nature. The show seeks to build a bridge between rural and urban spaces, fostering a symbiosis between the two. It aims to propose alternative ways of living that are sensitive to the environment, encouraging us to be an active part of the world around us.

Elisa Oliva discovered her love for circus arts while attending film school in London (2016-2018). After completing her studies in the seventh art, she decided to pursue a professional course as a circus artist at Flic Contemporary Circus School (2019-2020), specializing in aerial rope. During that year, she began exploring creative possibilities by incorporating a skateboard into aerial rope performances. After working as a teacher and performer for the Circo all’Incirca company (2021), she decided to move to Barcelona in 2022 to continue teaching and developing her project, TreNotturno, in the European capital of skateboarding.

Gabbie is a dance and circus artist who works as a performer, teacher, stage director, and movement director. She specializes in contemporary dance, acrobatics, and Chinese pole, with over 10 years of stage experience. Throughout her career, she has collaborated with several dance, circus, and physical theater companies, covering a wide variety of performance genres. She has toured both nationally and internationally, performing for theater audiences, street theater festivals, and under the circus tent at various festivals.

Her workshops on acrodance and Chinese pole have been sought after by various higher education institutions and professional companies, such as the Institut del Teatre (Barcelona), CREAT (Valencia), Movement Andalusi (Granada), UNSAM (Buenos Aires), Accademia Dimitri (Switzerland), 2Faced Dance, and NoFit State Circus (United Kingdom).

Girl with a Curl

Girl with a Curl is a fantasy about power and liberation. It delivers a public service announcement on how women have historically been taught to ignore and internalize their anger, conveniently sustaining the patriarchy and ensuring that violence remains on the side of the oppressor. This multidisciplinary and immersive solo piece combines Chinese pole, contemporary dance, acrobatics, physical theater, and text/comedy. The work is comedic, absurd, and carries a strong political charge.

Hristina Šormaz began practicing circus and focusing on aerial rope while studying scenography in Belgrade. She trained as an artist through non-formal education, artistic collaborations, and masterclasses in circus and contemporary dance. She is a member of the Cirkusfera association, dedicated to the development of the contemporary circus scene in Serbia and the region.

Discovering different physical practices became for her a way to question human relationships with their environment and society, which led her to engage in artistic, pedagogical, and social work driven by circus. Since 2018, she has been pursuing doctoral studies in scenography, where she investigates the use of space and matter from a circus perspective.

Currently, she is based in France, where she continues to work in the circus field, as well as in Serbia and Croatia.

‘Traces’

Mariana Fernández is a performing artist specializing in aerial acrobatics and contemporary dance. She has worked with circus and dance companies such as Cirko de Mente, Inside the Body, and Cia. Cracoviana, and has collaborated with the company NonGratos Teatro. As an independent artist, she has participated in international festivals and is the co-director of Mujer Barbuda, Women in Contemporary Circus. Additionally, she co-created projects like Colectiva 9 Gramos and currently directs the company Otra Vez Lunes. She has also been an international teacher and workshop facilitator in the field of circus arts.

La casa está en llamas

La Casa está en Llamas is a project that celebrates functional diversity as a powerful way of living and transforming the world. Using tools from circus, dance, theater, and visual arts, workshops and dynamics will be conducted to highlight the participants’ perspectives, revealing their transformative potential. In a safe space, topics such as self-perception, recognition, self-validation, and personal desires will be addressed, emphasizing the value and creativity of our differences. The circus concept of risk will be used to create performative spaces that will showcase the final proposals.

Morgana was born in Bologna in 1995, with a twin sister. After training in rhythmic gymnastics and studying Psychology at the University of Bologna, she discovered contemporary circus. She trained at the FLIC Circus School in Turin, where she studied clowning, contortion, and contemporary dance. She also obtained a master’s degree in Psychosomatics at the Villaggio Globale in Bagni di Lucca. In 2022, she founded the street circus and theater company Le Vamp and, eventually, resumed playing with Barbies, becoming Miss SBarbie.

Miss SBarbie

Once upon a time there was a plastic body. Maybe 2, maybe 10, maybe a 100… Or maybe a 101! There were once a lot of little cyborgs that brightened the lives of little girls, allowing them to imagine all the possible worlds, places, and moments that those inanimate creatures could materialize and experience. There’s Morgana. 
And there are the Barbies: my friends, my doubles, my audience, my enemies, my superpowers, my bullets… There’s Franchina, the automated car… And, of course, there is Ken… Human!

Arrel trains at the CAU School of Circus and Theatre in Granada, specializing in fixed trapeze. The artist creates and participates in various shows, both circus and other disciplines, standing out in performances such as La Ira, La cultura del odi, or No-conformes. Arrel works as a circus workshop leader and trainer at the Aire Circo Vivo School, La Volta, TuSí(K)Circ, La Rogelio Rivel, Del Revés, and the Caixa d’Eines program, among others, while continuing to train in other scenic and circus disciplines, and is part of Cata Aguayo’s Aerial Creation and Research Laboratory. He/She has also completed a degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology in Barcelona.

Lutum

Lutum invites us to contemplate the fragility and mutability of the body, a living and perishable weave that sinks into paralysis. It raises the question of how the idea of death, linked to the conception of illness, maintains an analogous (and anal) relationship with sexuality and gender questioning. Lutum offers a raw and organic scenic experience, revealed under the gaze of the spectator through trapeze, balloons, cameras, and video projections.

Otra Vez Lunes is an emerging contemporary circus company formed by Sofía Demicheli and Mariana Fernández, two trapeze artists with over ten years of experience on the scene. Their exploration on the trapeze is based on movement research, the search for breaking conventional forms, and using this technique as a poetic and expressive tool through the body in suspension. It also involves supporting each other on stage and on the trapeze, creating a space of trust and mutual support.

This is Not a Love Song

This Is Not a Love Song is a contemporary circus show that explores the complexities of love in pop culture, using satire to question romantic conventions and how they affect female self-perception and relationships. Through the skills of Sofía Demicheli and Mariana Fernández on the trapeze, stereotypes are challenged while creating a poetic narrative through movement. The stage space and visual elements enhance the experience, merging circus art with storytelling in a unique way.

The Circus Company “eia” («unforeseen impulses agreed» in French, “yes” in Sardinian) was founded in 2009 through the fusion of various artists: Armando Rabanera, Fabrizio Giannini, and Cristiano Della Monica (Cirque Vague, Circo de la Sombra, and Le Grand Osim Orchestra), and Francesca Lissia and Celso Pereira (Celso i Frana). With fifteen years of collective experience, five active creations, and over 800 performances in 25 countries, it has established itself as a leading company in contemporary Catalan and Spanish circus. At the core of its creations is a human circus, capable of evoking the complexity of human relationships.

Secrets

Secrets is a creation project for a contemporary indoor circus for five acrobats that will premiere in the Spring/Summer of 2026. In this project we will question ourselves about the passage of time and the transformations that it causes, with special attention on making visible and giving value to those things that we often hide. What would we ask of our last shooting star?

The collective was formed in 2024 following its first creation, Scandale. It originated from an invitation by Martina Monnicchi, who brought together Sofia Zambrano, Karine Saroh, Aïna Duc, Cecilia Stock, Yann Champelovier, Nathalie Maufroy, and Victor Marre-Cast in search of a collective writing process. Beyond this creation, the group aims to produce hybrid performances that engage with and adapt to aerial space.

Scandale

“Let’s try, for once, not to be right.” How does scandal take root in bodies that fight against domination? In bodies that are altered, embodied, and that confess themselves? Scandale aims to explore the construction of norms and the gaze projected onto them. With aerial space as its starting point, the collective works and positions itself at the crossroads of circus, performance codes, and visual arts.

Cie. Le Bar à Chiens is composed of artists Florencia Galimberti, Matthias Elgueta, Lina Ramírez, and Stefano Zacchi, hailing from Chile, Argentina, Colombia, and Italy, brought together by their desire to explore acrobatic lifts as part of the same language.

‘A braccio’

A braccio is a sensory experience that invites the audience to connect with their own emotions and memories, resonating with the deepest parts of their being. A journey where circus becomes the perfect vehicle to explore the depths of the human soul.

Cía. Mesa para Dos, founded by Bryony Fowler and César Bonilla, is a creative entity forged within mutual coexistence, infused with resilience, humor, community, and the unconventional. The artists’ paths crossed in Turin, where they shared an apartment and specialized in aerial rope at the Flic Scuola di Circo, while life took them down absurd paths that challenged social norms. For their current project, they are working with the artistic guidance of Alejandro Dutra.

‘DesMother’

DesMother is a circus exploration based on the satirical narration of this bond, working between the beauty of the margins and imperfection. Through aerial rope and humor that leans toward the absurd and the poetic, it explores the notions of the dirty, the vulnerable, the familiar, and the strange, the shifting of relationships, and everyone’s expectations in art and life. It celebrates friendship, mutual care as a revolution, and the beauty found in the obscene and in what society rejects.

Timothée Meiffren, a member of Collectif TBTF, is originally from Toulouse, where he developed a deep sensitivity to the visual arts, especially painting and sculpture, as well as an interest in exploring improvised music. Later, he discovered circus arts and trained as an acrobat at Esacto’Lido before entering the Fratellini Academy in Saint-Denis and the Circus School of Lyon. His acrobatic practice led him to explore choreographic language, so he continued his dance training in the Coline program in Istres. Since then, he has worked on merging these disciplines, driven by a passion for risk and a special affinity for falling.

‘La peur des vides’

Currently, Timothée is developing La peur des vides, a solo clown show with a red nose that combines live music, burlesque acrobatics, and puppetry. This 50-minute show is inspired by fantastical worlds and addresses themes such as strangeness and absurdity, welcoming others, our intimate relationship with productivity, and the fear of the voids it can create.

Marina Cherry, based in Stockholm, is a contortionist-acro-dancer, educated at ESAC (Brussels 2016-2019) and ENC (Montreal 2014-2016) she is now working on her solo show ‘Only Bones v.1.6’ as well as collaborative projects around Europe, including companies Les Argonauts and Petri Dish and Cirkus Cirkör. Her research-based approach to creation and performing puts her somewhere between dance, contemporary circus and physical theatre; with her body as the tool of manipulation and method for redefining traditional constructs and deconstructing techniques to find her own language.

‘AVoid’ is an anonymous space. An unusual body. A desultory corruption seeking reprieve. A pursuit of one’s fantasies, fears, and neuroses. Without a need for resolution or justification, AVoid is the astringent potentiality of the “in-between”: neither here nor there. The project is an attempt to touch on realities that belong to the indiscernible, the ineffable, those that are a reminder of the dissipation of certainties.

This project is born from Marina’s fascination with solitude, contradictions, alienation and the impact of rapidly developing—devolving—society in the face of digitalization. The common point being the concept hikikomori—the withdrawal into seclusion, a particular condition in Japanese society where people avoid social contact to an extreme level. Shutting oneself in.

The Charge Maximal de Rupture company (CMR) was born within the 31st CNAC 2019 promotion, composed by Fernando Arévalo, Marica Marinoni, Pablo Pe.ailillo, Héctor Díaz and Ma.l Thierry. They begin their journey under the wing of Galapiat Cirque, and then look for their own creative colours and their own ways of conceiving the collectivity.

Winners of the circus commission of the Beaumarchais-SACD Association in 2021, the company begins to consolidate itself with the parallel creation and distribution of Quiproquo (creation 2021) by Hector and Ma’l; and 9.8 by Pablo and Manuel (creation 2022).

This company is based on its plurality, thus carrying different creative projects at the same time, each developed by at least one of the members of CMR in collaboration with other artists to establish creative collectives. The collective gathered around the QUIMERA project is composed of Pablo Penailillo, Nicol·s Palma and Cristóbal Espoz, and this is the team involved in the creations with the aerial tapes.

QUIMERA

QUIMERA is a circus project that addresses the close bond that exists between the concept of “attachment” and that of “belonging”. Considered for the hall, in front format adaptable to the circular, it is performed by three circus artists united around the same apparatus: aerial straps.

 The center of our project is our relationship to this object and how this common bond expresses the relationship between us. The starting point of QUIMERA is the essential condition (and also the constraint) of straps: the attachment. This apparatus has the principle of connecting a body to ceiling, and the fact of being attached to this object suggests a fusion between the acrobat and the object, which thus become a single entity. 

The aim is to develop and divert this principle to discover how it is applicable to a group. Anchor yourself into the sky, to earth, to others, and become together one single creature. We start from the desire to make a journey together, that goes from three individuals to one creature, from personality to entity, from individuality to collectiveness.

Starting with us, three people that develop their personalities and relationship between them, until transform into a one single whole.This is an evolving journey that goes from a single unitary organism which grows, develops, adapts, separates and dismembers until it comes back into three individuals, into three beings humans. We dive into collective thinking, like that of a pack, of a flock of fish or birds, and in a thought of unity, like that of a cell or an organ. We therefore switch from the development of our humanity and individuality into a form of a united organism, and then come back transformed in the process. Then a question is posed: what to do now with this humanity? The idea is to take this question as a springboard to share our questions about this that defines us as people: our experiences, traumas, dreams and frustrations, and above all the relationship that exists between the three of us

Clara Prieto Boix starts her professional training at the Rogelio Rivel Circus School in Barcelona, and next to Codarts, University of Arts of Roterdam (Holland), where she specializes in rope. She also discovered the pole.

She has performed at various festivals in Catalonia, Belgium, Lithuania, Mexico… And she has participated in projects such as the Combinat de Circ from the Ateneu Popular 9 Barris, C%RC at the Antic Teatre in Barcelona, Balade de Cirque from Companie BAM, Nilak Circ Teatre Itinerant, among others. She’s interested in the social part of the circus and she has taken her to participate as a volunteer in projects in the southeast of Turkey and Tunis.

Her idea is to create a fluid and natural language, quality she is looking for through dance and movement. Her last discovering has been the tap, which together with dance, theater, humor and absurdity, are resources to achieve a more complete and diverse language.

‘Bennescuda’

Dice que en el manicomio, un día, el director coge a tres locos para ver si les puede dar de alta. / Dice: veniu aquí. / Se acercan los tres. / I li diu amb un, li diu: ¡a ver tú! 6×6? Y dice el tío: ¡Febrero! / Diu: vale nen, de puta mare. / Diu: tú, al segon, tú: 6×6? Diu: 1000! / Diu: molt bé! Deu ni do també. / Li diu al tercero: a ver tú!, ¿6×6? Y el tío: ¡36! / Diu, coi, diu: y ¿cómo has llegado a esta conclusión? / I diu: ¡fácil! He dividido febrero por mil.

Marc Bosch Mola (Vic, 1992) studies biology and neuroscience, while forming in circus. Later, with the aim of professionalizing as an artist, he studied at the Rogelio Rivel school in Barcelona. He performs in various pieces, such as ‘Gender’, under the direction of Tere Celis, and in the 58th Combinat de Circ of the Ateneu Popular de Nou Barris, under the direction of the Cia. Zero en Conducta. He also participates in various circus galas with his fixed trapezium show at the Mercateatre 2022, at the Cronopis Circ de Nadal 2023 and at the Gala Mara Mara in 2024.

In the attempt to continue expanding, he began to work with Andreas Avgousti (Nicosia, 1992), a gender researcher and queer philosophy. With this cross-contamination, between the physical practice of the circus and the queer philosophical discourse, the project ‘Escorça’ is born.

Escorça

Wrapped in a warrior’s armor, like a hard and heavy shell, I conceal an unknown part of myself.
Can’t you sense it when you embrace me? My hooked fingers tear at the protective remnants of wood, like an hourglass, revealing fragments of what’s beneath.
Slow and steady.
To uncover each piece and see others for who they truly are; will you really see me? Today, I could strip bare like a winter tree.
I wonder, is there more to me beyond this shell, or is bark all I am?
I wonder, do I have anything in common with you, or am I a monstrous creature?
Escorça materializes into a circus piece for two people, an interpreter and a technician; a puppet and a puppeteer. An attempt to (de)construct a circus piece following a learned vital recipe, where the discourse on human essence becomes the guiding thread. A tragicomic experience that speaks through layers, inviting the audience to self-reflection.

“Escorça” is an attempt to (de)construct a circus piece following a learned life recipe, where the discourse on human essence becomes the guiding thread. A tragicomic experience, speaking through our layers, inviting the audience to self-reflection.

Photo: Aina Barril

Borja Nou graduated in Social Education and is a Sociocultural Animation Technician. He also trained at the school of social theatre and performance La Roda in Madrid. As a circus artist, he trained at the Escuela Internacional de Circo y Teatro CAU in Granada, where he specializes in hand-to-hand discipline, as a base and flyer. Currently, he is in the process of creating two projects: ‘Requiem’, with the QIIMERA collective, and ‘Nébula Dermis, a solo show.

‘Nébula Dermis’

Nébula Dermis is a multidisciplinary piece of solo circus-mediation in which circus language, physical theatre and the will of the public are put into dialogue. It is a condemnation of the declaration of vulnerabilities, crossed by dissident identity. A popular sentence is proposed in which the apparent centre of condemnation is the artist, who, without being aware of it, also puts the public to trial with the blames attributed to them. A journey through the fragilities of the scenic body and the collective self-reference that is born from the need to share in a vulnerable way and to recognize oneself in it.

Photo: Fede Nieto

In 2022 Maria Paz brought together four circus artists – Jesu, Africa, Júlia and Maya – from France, Catalonia and Chile to create the company La côte folle. The collective is created, on the one hand, with the desire to create an acrobàtics and dance creation and, on the other hand, by the desire to share collective ethics and the question of how we make circus.

Entre bous i vaques

Five acrobatic bodies that are carried and accompanied, use a structure that is transformed to explain ‘Entre bous i vaques’. The collective La côte folle proposes – through the acrobatics and dance – a scenic narrative about memory, forgetfulness, old age, dementia and the passage of time, inspired by real anecdotes and testimonies.
A street proposal and for everyone. A journey between the memories of a ruined brain, between sensitivity and humour.

Photo: Andreu Casadellà Oller

Phonophobia is a company formed by Karita y Maristella, multidisciplinary artists who explore different forms of scenical art such as circus, singing, physical theatre and dance. Currently, they are in the process of creating their second project ‘Fast food emotion’.

Silvia Capell (Catalonia) studies psychology and is trained as a professional circus artist at the La Tarumba school in Lima, Peru. Later he returns to Barcelona where he builds his artistic life and works in different companies and projects, such as Les Capgirades, Colectivo La Persiana, Los Galindos, La Virgueria, Les Impuxibles and Companyia Voël.

In 2015 she created her own company with a solid commitment to contemporary art and with the aim of generating risky art and direct dialogue without anesthesia with the public. After ‘Homenaje’, her first creation, she’s currently in the process of creating ‘Ángela Caído’.

Ángela 

Born in Argentina, she trained there as a circus artist, focusing on aerial acrobatics. She obtained the title of Professor of Body Expression-Dance at the University of Arts of Buenos Aires; complementing her training with other arts of movement. She is professionally dedicated to aerial disciplines and scenography.

She participates as a performer in the ‘DanzAbismal’, a group of dancers dedicated to researching, experimenting and producing performative interventions in non-conventional spaces. She co-founded ‘Companyia Anexo23’ with Meme Canziani. Together, as directors and performers, they created the piece ‘PVC (C2H3Cl)n’, which was presented in various locations in Buenos Aires.

Recently, she has created her company to carry out and deepen her new contemporary circus project, ‘Tension’, which was selected by CircusNext 2024.

Tension

It is the intimate space where discomfort resides. It’s this lift, the staircase, the emergency exit. A body in contact with the object. A hostile object that damages its skin; it becomes skin, flesh; it could be another body, perhaps this body attacking, manipulating, sniffing. Bodies talking about their limits, playing with the abyss: How much pain can we endure? How much tension can we resist? Hold on!

Hold on? It could break at any time. A large latex wall that divides the interior of the exterior. Domination, submission, subjugation. From pleasure to pain and grief to aggression. The exhibition of fragility fighting to feel safe. A party with balloons: the celebration of order and disorder. The jump, the fall. Chaos, what a great chaos! It is freedom to submit!

Photo: Flavia Andolfi