Festival presents a special programme of Nordic contemporary circus
The festival RE RE RIGA!, which has been included in the «Riga 2014 – European Capital of Culture» program, will present a special program of Nordic contemporary circus this year, assembled with the support of the Nordic Council of Ministers‘ programme «Culture».
The Nordic contemporary circus program consists of four stylistically different surprising shows. The Nordic artists will entertain the public in the Large Hall of the Riga Congress Centre for two nights.
On Thursday, August 7, at 7:30 p.m. the asymmetrical French–Norwegian duo Magmanus from Sweden will perform their show «Attached», drawing the spectators into a moving and amusing tale about attachment and disconnection, the uncontrollable domino effect in the lives of humans and people’s ability to color another person’s life with their actions. And on Friday, August 8, at 7:30 p.m. the Finnish contemporary circus and visual theatre company Nuua will take the audience to a poetic universe with their performance «Lento». By combining object manipulation, juggling, acrobatics and physical theatre, this show invites on a search for risk, control and nostalgia.
The occasional passers-by and those, who will not manage to get the tickets to the indoors shows, also will not be left without a surprise. Two nights, on Friday, August 8, and on Saturday, August 9, at 7 p.m. at the Laima Clock a spectacular show “Musica Mobile” will be performed. It will seemingly start out as an accident, when the musical bus of the Norwegian Cirka Teater troupe will cross the route of the youth brass band Auseklitis (Latvia), and develop in an unexpected direction. This will be a fascinating story about contrasts – between the ragged theatre troupe of foreigners and the sharply-dressed orchestra, between humans and technology, between noise and music – and about the moment when the road to harmony seems impossible. On Saturday, August 8, at 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in the square at the Congress Centre, the spectators will be entertained by a bona-fide street circus troupe Clunker Circus from Finland with the performance “Fuzzy Dice Circus”. In the atmosphere of a pretend mall parking lot the young artists will show off acrobatic stunts, dance with a hoop and fool around on roller-skates along the dance tunes of the ’90s.
A short introduction to Nordic circus
In the last few years, the Scandinavian contemporary circus has risen to a prominent place on the international stage. Nordic aesthetics and the distinctive Scandinavian juggling style have become a trademark. Yet it is only recently that this kind of circus has come in the limelight in our neighborhood and mostly thanks to mutual collaboration, encouraged by the New Nordic Circus Network, training both as a pastime and professionally, promotion of circus research and education of the public. In the Nordic countries contemporary circus is especially popular among youth. Children and youngsters have various options to learn the circus art. In the University of Turku in Finland and the Stockholm University of Dance and Circus in Sweden it is possible to train in circus professionally, and emerging artists from around the world head there to study.
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