Circolo 2023: how I fell in love with an ostrich in 1 day.

Ostriches, as droll as they are graceful, disappearing into man-sized reeds at dusk. I saw the sculpture yesterday in Tilburg's Spoorpark, where Circus Festival Circolo has settled again this year. So simple can poignancy be, so moving can you make your own story out of what good performers present to you. 

The nine handstand specialists of Collectif d'équilibristes made me feel at Le Complexe de l'Autruche what good circus is capable of these days. Not tricks, but art, where body control, unrivalled flexibility and strength are at the service of something else: atmosphere, meditation, humour. And something you can try at home this time: walking like an ostrich. Turns out harder than you think, but your head will be right in the sand.

Already a highlight

That the circus has gone beyond the trick show for years is no longer news. We are used to continuous stories, cohesive programmes and full-length performances by close-knit ensembles. What I experienced the day after the opening of Circolo I already consider a highlight, and that while the festival has only just begun. 

You can take that highlight literally this time too, because this year, for the first time, the Kempertoren will be used as the venue. The open steel watchtower is the landmark of Tilburg's Spoorpark and already scary and spectacular enough to look at, let alone climb. Two acrobats have now hung a pulley in the top at 37 metres, each hanging from a different end of the cable. We, the spectators who have left their fear of heights at home for a while, stand on the steps around them and watch them descend from the heights, balancing on the iron railings and finally finding each other halfway up. All this accompanied by warm guitar sounds, which were very welcome on this suddenly old-fashioned cold and wet October weekend. 

Can you still dance?

That the performance made me forget my fear of heights is perhaps the makers' greatest achievement. And sometimes that forgetting is also needed for a moment, in a world that this week descended a few more steps into the hell of division, panic and unresolvable conflicts.

Can you still dance after that new depth was reached with a massacre at a dance festival? I would say now: please do. While the warmth of Cirque Pardi's packed circus tent felt comforting, Le Doux Suppli's performance did the rest. With 'En Attendant Le Grand Soir', the company brings a performance so beautiful, stylish, loving and technically perfect that I was deeply moved. The humour disarms, the control is perfect: I have never seen a dancer fly straight up to the top of a human pyramid like this before. 

And it ends with a dance to which everyone is invited. Then, after folk dancing, derwishes, breaks and jive, a swirling moshpit suddenly forms in the arena, which I would have stayed watching for a long time, had I not had to catch a train, back into chilly reality. 

Don't stop the dance.