The circus is back

After two years of cancellations, restrictions and difficulties of all kinds, the great circus is back. From March 2 to 7, the Golden Elephant International Circus Festival (which did not fail in 2022) celebrated its 11th edition in Girona. The Gironí Festival has established itself as one of the most prestigious in the world, this year with seventy artists from twenty countries who elegantly mix contemporary and other more classic numbers, some very unpublished and exceptional. This year the Golden Elephant is the first international festival to program Chinese artists after the pandemic: the acrobatic company of the city of Dezhou has presented diabolo juggling and jumping through circles.

In another record, last December 21, the Night of the Circus of the Zirkolika 2022 awards that was held at the Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona demonstrated the enormous vitality of the contemporary circus in Catalonia. But the most noteworthy international event is the resumption, after a double pandemic stoppage, of the Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival, the most prestigious in the world. From January 20 to 29, it celebrated its 45th edition, accompanied by the 10th New Generation Festival dedicated to young emerging stars. This year, the presence of Ukrainian artists and the absence of Russian and Chinese artists was noticeable.

In Monte-Carlo, the classical circus dominates over the strictly contemporary with clowns, tightrope walkers, acrobatic numbers in the air or on the ground, rope jumps, a knife thrower (Brazilian Alfredo Silva with Aleksane Kiedrowiez; an old-fashioned exciting show that many today they consider out of place), contortionists, tightrope walkers and jugglers (Kris Kremo, now with his son Harrisson). Wesley Williams has taken balance on a unicycle to more than 9 meters high. The magic was also there with the great illusions of Peter Marvey who has even simulated flight. Neither the flying trapezes (with Michael Martini's quadruple somersault), nor the giant double wheel of death could be missing.

Animals are seen in Monte-Carlo. Alessio Fochesato's spectacular large parrots in freedom presented by Elisa Coussandier play all kinds of collective games until they fly balanced above the spectators with complete autonomy. And you can't miss the tigers and the horses. Bruno, Flavio Togni's son has won the Audience Award with 10 tigers that obey his voice, walk straight back and jump straight over other tigers lying on the track. The youngest members of the famous German Casselli family, René junior, Merrylu and Quincy Azzario have won the Golden Clown for their balances on horses. Alex Giona's horses at liberty have obtained a silver Clown.

But I have chosen an individual number, of great plasticity, that of Viktoriia Dziuba, who already received a Silver Junior in 2020, a twenty-year-old Ukrainian artist who elegantly combines balance and contortion, now awarded a Silver clown