After two years of dreaming and planning, today is finally the day: Festival Circolo - the largest circus festival in the Netherlands - is back! From 22 to Sunday 31 October, Tilburg's Leijpark will transform into an oasis full of spectacle, acrobatics and humour. Framed by the beautiful autumnal colours of the park, visitors will be treated to modern circus of international top level.
For ten days, Festival Circolo presents a unique mishmash of (inter)national top performances and tantalising experiments on the cutting edge of acrobatics, theatre, dance, music and performance art. Surprising, astonishing and at times thrilling.
"The opening weekend of the festival will feature a special tasting of everything modern circus anno 2021 has to offer," said festival director Marc Eysink Smeets. "Big productions are interspersed with intimate shows, free shows and other top entertainment." The Leijpark forms the festival heart, but Festival Circolo is also present at several other locations in Tilburg. Smeets continues: "There is a lot going on in the city from tomorrow. As organisers, we are eager to get started."
Some highlights of the opening weekend
L'âne & La Carotte - Lucho Smit
Insane or genius? Acrobat and daredevil 'extraordinaire' Lucho Smit pushes the limits of circus in this spectacular solo performance. He swings in the trapeze, flies through the air, plays with fire, builds a tower of chairs and balances on ropes in an attempt to raise the bar for himself again and again. Extra special: this 'must-see' can also be experienced by the blind and visually impaired on Sunday 24 October thanks to audio description.
Breathless watching is inevitable, with this acrobatic comedian figuring out what his body is capable of. During all Luchez's impressive antics, he is accompanied musically by singer Lola Calvet. A typical example of modern circus, where different disciplines come together.
L'Absolu - Les Choses de Rien (sold out)
Perhaps Festival Circolo's greatest spectacle of all is to be experienced not in the festival centre, but in the middle of Tilburg's city centre. French newspaper Le Monde wrote: "Original, radical, intense and wonderful. A poetic, sensory 'big bang'." And not a word of that is a lie. Seeing is believing in the 13-metre-high silo, the breathtaking domain of acrobat Boris Gibé.
In the middle of the festival grounds are two half arches. A nice resting place for festival-goers, but also a playground for circus performers. Every so often, the metre-high iron arches rise into the air and the 'resting benches' turn into a kind of climbing apparatus. Every day, a number of performances are played in this circus vault for the inflowing audience, free and for nothing.
From an expedition across the festival site to an old-fashioned candy cart, and from an intriguing documentary to a very special merry-go-round: besides circus performances, there is much more to experience at Festival Circolo. Access to the festival site is free of charge.
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