PLI is selected as circusnext Laureate 2020-2021.
Who folds whom?
A circus artist and two visual artists come together over a stack of paper. All driven by their fascination with this millennia-old material.
Paper has many identities, ranging from the blank page to the crumpled sketch. Paper carries our innermost thoughts and universal truths. Paper is always at hand. It bears witness to our lives, our dreams, our culture, and our history. Can it do more than that?
Viewed through the prism of the circus, the exploration of paper’s properties is taken to an unprecedented extreme. In the tension between fragility and strength, body and paper fold into and out of each other in a – at times – nerve-wracking negotiation of force and balance. Who is more vulnerable: the suspended body or the paper?
PLI was created in close collaboration and throughout the creative phase, there has been a strong focus on the destiny of the raw material. After the performance, the paper is reused or recycled.
BIOS:
Inbal Ben Haim, circus artist specialized in trapeze and aerial rope, works both in Israel, where she was born, and in France, where she resides. She graduated from CNAC, Centre National des Arts du Cirque Châlons-en-Champagne, in 2017. Inbal strives to create strong connections between the audience and the artist, the intimate and the spectacular, the earth and the air, here and there.
Alvaro Valdes, circus artist and dancer, graduate of the Circo del Mundo school in Chili. He has worked on numerous circus and dance projects as director and outside eye. Emotional memory is his primary creative resource – and he currently works with Cie Lunatic, Cie Barks, the theater dance collective Poetic Punkers, La Muse en Circuit, Inbal Ben Haim, and the Nok dance collective.
Domitille Martin, visual artist, graduated from École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 2015. Drawing inspiration from nature, she creates sculptural installations with a focus on the transformation of animals, plants, minerals, and humans.
ABOUT CIRCUSNEXT
Circusnext offers a unique program of support to emerging creators of contemporary circus! It is carried out by a large European platform of 30 partners representing 17 countries. Read more: https://circusnext.eu/en/
ABOUT C!CAF
Copenhagen Circus Arts Festival is a biennale that presents international high-quality contemporary circus art. Performances that catch you where the borders between circus and art are erased. Where something new and unique is created!
Dancer, choreographer and artistic director of Kitt Johnson X-act, Kitt Johnson, is the curator of C!CAF.
Johnson has many years of experience with the festival format, a continuous collaboration with AFUK/AMOC and a longstanding affiliation with the Danish circus milieu as well as international network connections as jury member in circusnext and currently acting mentor in their lab program. Coming from this background, Kitt Johnson X-act hopes to be able to contribute to the development of contemporary circus as a genre on a national level.
