Online General Meeting

The next General Meeting of the network, initially scheduled from 19-21 August 2020 in Prague (Czech Republic), co-organised with Cirqueon and Letni Letna, in the frame of the Letní-Letná festival will take place digitally on August 21.

PROGRAMME 

• 10:00-11:30 (CET)     Welcome and newsround session  -  internal session 
• 12:00-13:00 (CET)     Presentation of the street and circus arts panorama in Czech Republic by Veronika Štefanová - external session

This session will be moderated by Stéphane Segreto-Aguilar, coordinator of Circostrada Network

• 15:00-16:30 (CET)     Plenary Session - internal session
• 17:00-18:00 (CET)     Keynote Session by Barbora Adolfová  - external session 

  This session will be moderated by Mara Pavula from Rigas cirks, also member of the Steering Committee of Circostrada 

We are also preparing some artistic resources with our partners for you to discover the Czech scene. 

• Presentation of the street and circus arts panorama in Czech Republic

  Introducing the nature of Czech contemporary circus

  How does a professional contemporary circus form emerge in a country with no professional circus school? What role does the theater background play in the creative practises of Czech artists and how does it reflect spectator expectations? Furthermore, how do these artists perceive their position within the context of Czech performing arts, what are their working conditions and how are they reflected in their work? The objective of this round table is to present the specifics of Czech contemporary circus (taking into account street arts), which has established itself over the course of the past ten years as a professional art form thanks to the efforts of non-profit organizations and independent theater artists. This meeting aims to provide insight into Czech contemporary circus and clarify the aesthetic, cultural, political and social contexts which led to the development of this art form and which continue to influence its development today.

   

  Veronika Štefanová holds a PhD from the department of theatre studies at Charles University in Prague, exploring contemporary circus as a dramatic art. She occasionally teaches at Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and is in charge of the circus magazine, library, documentation, and research at CIRQUEON, the umbrella organization for the support and development of contemporary circus in the Czech Republic." She currently works as a reporter for the culture section of Czech Radio and has also published several articles, studies and scholarly publications in journals.

   

• Keynote session: Circus Advocacy

  Circus Advocacy

   

  How do you explain the benefits of circus to a person that has no personal experience with it? Especially in a country where contemporary circus does not have a tradition yet? Or to a person who has a very strong stereotypical image of circus? Which points do you need to make to catch people´s attention?

  Barbora Adolfová 

  Barbora Adolfová is a circus producer from CIRQUEON. She ran away with the circus while studying Theatre Management at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU). She was always interested in combining arts with education, games, youth and community work and was very happy to discover you can find all of this in youth and social circus.

  These days she is back at DAMU doing a Ph.D. focusing on Social Circus Advocacy and keeps working on the same as a producer and a coordinator of Cirkonet – Czech and Slovak Youth and Social Circus Network.

  Mara Pavula is the head of strategic development in Riga Circus, producer in festival Re Riga! and residency programs in the multidisciplinary festival Sansusi in Latvia. Passionate about contemporary circus since 2009, she is the founder of a contemporary circus platform in Baltic states called “Next Door Circus” and has been working as a circus researcher and journalist