With the support of Aktion Mensch and the City of Cologne, we have revised our website and made it more accessible. The website has been updated, tested and adapted in accordance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, compliance level AA.
In addition, there are now videos in German sign language with information about the CircusDanceFestival.
Feel free to take a look!
CircusDanceFestival in Cologne, May 16. - 31. 2026
For this year's CircusDanceFestival, we are looking for volunteers to help with set-up and dismantling, artist support, bar, box office and entrance. As part of the team, you will get a glimpse behind the scenes of the festival and have the opportunity to get up close and personal. Catering will be provided during your time on site.
Come Closer Lab is a dedicated space for artistic exchange, dialogue, and inspiration.
There is no pressure to produce final results; instead, the focus lies on practical sharing and experimentation. The lab is part of this year’s CircusDanceFestival edition and follows the same thematic focus: Come Closer.
For our open calls, we have once again brought in external jury members this year, with whom we want to discuss and exchange ideas about the selection. It is always a very exciting process to get an outside perspective and exchange ideas with other people.
Find out more about the members of tour two juries:
The CircusDanceFestival is looking for short film contributions up to 20 min.
In cooperation with the Cologne Moovy Filmfestival, Workspace Dynamo, Short Waves Festival, OFF Odense international Film Festival and Circus City UK, selected films will be presented as part of the Circus & Film format at the CircusDanceFestival 2026.
Applications can be submittet until december 1rst.
CircusDanceFestival is seeking original short pieces from the circus and dance field for a 360° audience on an outdoor stage. You have until 1rst December 2025 to submit your best solo or duo work, in the air or on the floor, lasting up to fifteen minutes.
Applications are welcome from both established and emerging artists, a late-career changer or a cross-disciplinary artist. Your work can be funny, smart, contemplative, queer, poetic, critical... like to your taste. However, you should consider the context of an open-air setting and that we search for works that are performed 360°!
We look back on a wonderful festival weekend. Even the rain couldn't stop us. Three days full of contemporary circus, inspiring conversations, new perspectives and moving encounters. We are still full of all the moments we were able to experience together.
Thank you to everyone who made this possible!
If you want to reminisce a little, you can find a small photographic review.
You can also read a small VOICES special with an article about Julian Vogel and his work in our CDFthek.
We say goodbye to the summer break and wish you all a good time!
CircusDanceFestival 2025
June 6 - 8
Over Pentecost we celebrate again the diversity of forms of expression in contemporary circus, dance and performance and take an artistically resistant look at the challenges of the present. It will be poetic, thought-provoking, political and spectacular! Hope is not a state, but a practice – and so the festival celebrates the vitality of movement and artistic experimentation, focuses on the language of the body and creates space for encounters, contradiction and new perspectives.
Mélissa Guex brings a powerful performance to Cologne that reinterprets the collective “down” of our time. In “Ceramic Circus”, Julian Vogel attempts to make the impossible possible using circus techniques. In the daily changing open-air programme, international artists present their latest creations for the 360° stage, the Latibul Circus Garden opens its doors for families and the hand-picked film programme ranges from experimental to Arte-Cinema. At the European conference “Take Care”, we will focus on mental health and care, and the concert by the band “Crème Solaire” will be the latest call to dance in the early summer.
Welcome to the green Rhine floodplains at the CircusDanceFestival 2025!
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