On an early May evening, the National Theater: The New Stage in Prague is sold out for the premiere show of “Krajina těla”, or “Land of Body”. Sounds of waves crashing and cello drones fill the hall as aerial acrobat Alžbeta Tichá climbs up a dangling rope, twisting, flipping, and falling dangerously fast before it pulls taut. While she moves through her choreography, eight LED screens placed around the stage show close-up shots of hair follicles.
This is circus. Or, a kind of circus. With its understated exploration of physicality–a visual poem through movement–“Krajina těla” is an example of the emerging experimental circus style in the Czech Republic. This style is decidedly different from the theatrical and showy version of modern circus that Czech companies have mastered. The change comes as a new generation of performers enters the field, bringing with them new techniques and concepts.
Alzbeta Ticha on the rope in “Krajina těla”
Photo courtesy: Vojtěch Brtnický, Narodni divadlo
Czech contemporary circus was created right after the fall of communism in 1989. “Metaphorical, symbolic–the circus as a physical form was there as a metaphor to represent something else. Like you are on the trapeze, so you are representing a bird, for example.” says Veronika Stefanova, research supervisor of CIRQUEON–a Prague-based circus center. Theater folk were inspired by touring European circus companies, but without formal training to make stand-alone circus shows, they began incorporating elements into theater productions.
The popularity exploded in 2004 with the annual summer festival, Letní Letná, started by Jiří Turek, who had a background in dancing, miming, and alternative theater. When he first hosted the festival in Prague, there were 6,000 attendees. Now, it attracts 60,000 people, making it the biggest contemporary circus festival in the Czech Republic. “We invite the biggest companies,” Turek says of his festival direction. “We must do it. The smaller festivals cannot invite them, it is too expensive.” The necessity of featuring large companies has developed a large, unvarying style of circus–commercial and theatrical.
Case in point is Cirk La Putyka, the latest company in Prague, currently performing “Cesty“, which features more than 50 performers in a classic circus top. The acrobats and dancers and actors wear flashy costumes, and thunderous sound effects accentuate the stunts. In one act, nine women flip around hula hoops spinning, high in the air. In another, a man walks amidst the audience seats and breathes out hot, orange flames. These moments are interspersed with moments of storytelling and dialogue. Altogether, the show is a glamorous spectacle.
This “wow” factor is necessary, explains researcher Stefanova. “They would like to really live on circus and work only in circus, and it means you have to sell lots of tickets.” Cirk La Putyka and other large companies have successfully done so, regularly selling out shows.
In recent years, the experimental shows have gained popularity with new techniques by younger artists. The kids, who ten years ago signed up for informal circus classes in CIRQUEON, are of professional age now Stefanova says, “They were so courageous to go abroad to study in professional circus schools in Denmark, in France, in Netherlands. Then they came back and started to do their art here.”
The rope acrobat in “Krajina těla”, Alžbeta Tichá left the Czech Republic for the Codarts University of Arts in the Netherlands to earn her bachelor’s degree in circus in 2020. She gained perspective about the different styles that exist abroad.” “It’s more experimental,” Tichá says, “The artists are searching for different approaches to circus.”
Now based in Prague, Tichá performs in several avant-garde shows. Along with “Krajina těla”, she is part of “Thin Skin,” a production staged in the DOX Centre for the Contemprary Art. It features three acrobats using thin metal rods that are suspending from the ceiling, developing an illusion of levitation. Tichá describes the experience: “I don’t have any character there. I am not even myself, I am just a totally neutral person. We are just moving with the objects, we are manipulators.”
Tichá emphasizes that she is not so much entertaining an audience as pushing the limits of her art–conducting a kind of research while on stage. “When I go on the rope, I have to be present. There is no chance to think about anything else,” Tichá says. “For me, it’s a kind of meditation.”
Other, newer circus festivals, such as Cirkopolis and Cirkus Base, annually feature exclusively experimental productions. At the circus center CIRQUEON, professionally trained artists teach classes for youth, and introduce unique concepts to them early on. There are also initiatives to incorporate circus pedagogy into physical education at schools, which indirectly encourage families to support the field.
“We are a small country,” Tichá says, “but we have a lot of companies.” With the field’s continuous expansion, the recent inventive productions mark the cusp of an exciting new era of Czech circus. What remains consistent, though, is passion. Ticha says, “Czech circus artists are really doing it from the bottom of their heart. And I think this is really unique.”
Article by: Meghana Kakubal
Originally posted to Dispatches
Featured image courtesy of Cirk La Putyka
“Cirk La Putyka performers in “Cesty”