Negotiating the in-between: Circus in the city
by Thusnelda Marín Jungmann
Foot to foot on the ping-pong table in the Bürgerpark in Kalk. Hand in hand at the Heumarkt underground station. The CircusDanceFestival has begun – sort of. The “City Pop-up” programme serves as an amuse-bouche for the festival before it takes up residence on the Latibul site in the Niehl district. So, to begin with, a tentative step towards: the city, its people, their routines. The festival motto “Come Closer” proves not to be a one-sided invitation: it is not only the audience that moves towards art – contemporary circus moves into society as well: amidst the noise of everyday life, stressed bodies, different neighbourhoods. Closeness arises here not as a concept, but as a practice. Through touch. Through shared time. Through the risk of letting oneself fully emerge. Without words. As a physical negotiation of distance and closeness. And immediately the question arises: How close is too close?
Unnoticed, the performers of 101 concrete make their appearance, behind a car park at the Arkaden Köln, on the fringes of the action. They blend in with the people who gathered around the ping-pong table – this urban space, open to chance encounters and coincidences. At first, Camille Larroque and Stevie Koglin adopt and play with principles from their immediate surroundings, together with the audience: playground practices such as tag, movement, childish fun. Then the table turns into the stage for a field of tension. Every move is suddenly a risk, every approach a potential fall. This is not a classical pas de deux, but – as the title suggests – an ‘entre deux’: a negotiation in the in-between. Two sides that do not merge, but try to understand one another.
One pose encapsulates this principle: two bodies in a stretched arc – the ability to bend into new perspectives without losing oneself in the process. This is precisely what makes the work so accessible. It is “101% concrete” because it connects with the audience’s memories: first kiss, running laps, sneaking a smoke. And in the end: applause – not for spectacular tricks, but for a different kind of virtuosity, one that takes relationships seriously. It presents them not as harmony, but as negotiation – as a balance between risk and trust. The workshop that follows expands on this experience: acting for yourself, feeling for yourself. Suddenly, everything is experiences everything through a childlike gaze – a new assessment of one’s own position in relation to the object and in relation to others.
In between: by bike or train to the next performance venue. That, too, is part of the dramaturgy of this opening – movement not only on stage, but through the city, between places and contexts. The City Pop-up thus reflects a central practice of the festival: production not as a self-contained stage process, but as something that develops through collaborations, cross-disciplinary support and local roots. It is precisely the collaboration with local artists and organisations, such as the collective UNANiM, that demonstrates: closeness also develops at an institutional level. The festival does not merely come to the city – it works with it.
There are several ways to access the UNANiM performance – there is no traditional backstage area. Anyone approaching from metro line 7 to ‘Lower Level’ catches a brief glimpse behind the scenes: the collective rallies round, prepares for its ‘system’ with a high-five. A few metres further on, restlessness begins in the audience. Instead of row 12, seat 2, there are no clear rules – just the search for the right behaviour, for one’s own position within the situation. Before anyone even has a chance to get their bearings, they are taken by the hand. Yet this closeness shifts – almost faster than the initial smile fades – towards getting closer to the art than one would in a theatre. Trains are rumbling in the background, evoking associations of deportations. A person in military clothing appears in the middle of the audience: coincidence or part of the production? The boundaries begin to blur.
The theatre ‘system’ reveals itself here as a structure that does not disclose its rules but subtly enforces them. Almost unconsciously, the audience becomes part of it – until some of them suddenly find themselves herded behind barrier tape. Others move freely, watching, not intervening. The system organises itself: caring on the inside, when performers help one another over obstacles; indifferent on the outside, towards those who remain excluded (or enclosed). The roles are assigned without having ever been verbalised. And whilst many hesitate, a toddler steps forward, opens the barrier, walks through – and closes it again. A moment that simultaneously subverts and confirms the rules. Within the performance, ‘Come Closer’ can thus be read as a propagandistic principle: a supposedly voluntary approach that turns out to be an insidious apparatus.
The City Pop-up thus proves to be a clever opening for the festival. It not only sets a theme, but makes it physically tangible: Come Closer – but how close is too close? The rest of the programme also explores these questions from a wide variety of perspectives. Thematic trails invite visitors to find their own way through the festival – between intimacy and distance, between control and play, between observing and participating. In this process, the arts themselves are invited to come closer together: how do dance and circus intersect and collide? Where can we find transitions, where friction? The festival promises no clear boundaries, but movements in the in-between – and that is precisely what makes it so appealing.