Vwill be proclaimed this Tuesday, November 7, the first male and female doctors in contemporary circus. Five male and three female artists – two are foreign – will discuss their thesis at the Cirko Vertigo Academy in Grugliasco, in the province of Turin, at the conclusion of a professional journey which the inter-ministerial commission initiated last year recognized as equivalent to a three-year degree in DAMS.
«Count on a university course that graduates students as contemporary circus artists it is a sensational novelty for our country”, comments Paolo Stratta, founder and director of Cirko Vertigo Foundationremembering the degrees that now exist in the world, in Canada, Holland, Sweden, Belgium, France and already enjoying building plots for future Erasmus projects to offer to new students.
Degree in Contemporary Circus
«Having a degree in contemporary circus means being a recognized artist. Have what it takes to participate in tenders and competitions, become a teacher, festival director, event creator, coach, evaluator. But it also constitutes an effective enrichment of a career in entertainment that guarantees a professional life considerably longer than standard”. continues Stratta.
«Many graduates will continue to be artists, as pure interpreters they will take part in the auditions. Maybe to be cast in opera, in cinema, and probably many – following the European trend which today is increasingly also Italian – will get together and set up companies.”
20 young people enter the Academy every year, selected from hundreds of candidates. (Andrea Macchia)
A multidisciplinary path
The global vision of contemporary circus is built through the teaching of 25 disciplines. «There are, of course, the physical and artistic ones: static and dynamic acrobatics, acrobatics on the ground, balance on the hands and head, dance», explains Stratta. Who graduated from the Dams of Bologna, and is a former fire-eating fakir, actor, director, essayist and theater organizer.
«Students choose these disciplines can complement those of balance – you see the tight wire, the soft rope, the Chinese pole, the sphere, the Washington trapeze – or the aerial ones, such as the Spanish rope, the fabrics, the trapeze or the hammock, a sort of hammock which is the creative evolution of the fabrics.”
And here’s the news: «These subjects are integrated with theoretical training in the history of dance and theatre, Theory and technique of costume, Principles of anatomy. And then biomechanics and dietetics and dramaturgy and elements of research, communication and marketing techniques, organization and economics of entertainment, psychology of sport and performance, safety in the workplace.”
From Circus to Contemporary Circus Art
The artists who will defend their thesis on Tuesday have integrated the Foundation’s pre-existing professional training course for contemporary circus artists with this theoretical training. Or training credits from previous university courses.
«The recognition at graduation marks the transition from Circus to contemporary Circus Art: it is the culmination of a multidisciplinary journey in which dance, theatre, music and cinema create contemporary and authentic languages together with circus, today finally officially recognized for their importance and professionalism”.
Not just talent, it takes tenacity and consistency
To enter the degree course, an entrance exam is required. «Of course, physical aptitude prerequisites are necessary, but experience has taught me that the most developed careers do not start from absolute talents, but from tenacity, perseverance and self-sacrifice. I say, ‘We’re looking for normal people who are destined to be successful.'”
The debut of the degree in Contemporary Circus attracted boys and girls from all over Italy. Several hundred applications, 20 are admitted to the first year, who are already following the courses in the historic headquarters of Grugliasco, in the province of Turin, which has hosted the activities of Cirko Vertigo for twenty years. And in the new headquarters in Mondovì, in the province of Cuneo, recently inaugurated.
The great discovery of the circus
Among the new members is Luca Savoldini, from Brescia, born in 2000, a story of zigzag research, outside and inside oneself. Luca is graduating as a laboratory technician, but he knows he wants a bigger life. He becomes passionate about acting, then the world of stunts and, while working in an amusement park, thanks to some fellow dancers he discovered the world of aerial acrobatics and, in particular, the circle.
Start studying it, he doesn’t have any expectations, but he feels that his body responds very well, so he begins to dream of a life as a performer. And here it lands here in Piedmont. Anna Dalla Costa, born in ’96 in a small village at the foot of the Belluno Dolomites, where she comes up with the sense of adventure that Pippi Longstocking gives her. She says she passed between art and languages, philosophy and, always hopping, between artistic gymnastics and dance until she encountered the circus. And there she decides to stop, first at the Circus and Social Theater in Turin, then at Cirko Vertigo.
From Agraria to walking at heights
Gabriele Forlesi, 24 years old, originally from Rimini, diploma in Agriculture, the passion for “a vast variety of things, from the quiet ones like fishing to the extreme ones like highlining”, he says. Instead, an encounter from which he was never able to escape: «I have always worked since I was very young, to help my mother, who had a physical problem, and I have always sought a life that allowed me to work and travel. The summer of three years ago, a person from a circus company saw me slacklining (walking on a bungee cord, ed.) and invites me to the tent. I stay for a few days and, nothing! The energy of that place was incredible, I fell in love with it!”.
The family is a decisive viaticum for some of the boys: Baptiste Elia Hotz’s mother, Italian-French, comes from a family of musicians and piano craftsmenhis father works in the circus and they both encourage him first to realize himself in contemporary dance, then in the circus.
The infantile recall
For other new students, arriving here is the fulfillment of a childhood calling. See Emma Sofia Kaiser: 19 years old, she grew up in the Austrian mountains and graduated from sports high school with a thesis on physical well-being through circus training. «At three years old I saw my first circus show, I always knew it would be my story. My goal is to learn to use the body to convey emotions.”
Or Amelia Arantxa Albatici, a twenty-year-old from Trento, who has instinctively climbed upwards since she was littlejumping, climbing trees, climbing mountains and is passionate about aerial acrobatics and rope, and today studies here “to have a complete vision of what the circus is in all its forms”.
Luca Mancini, from Pesaro, 25 years old, degree in Literature, undertakes a personal journey of profound knowledge: he follows a Gestalt counseling course in Florence, thanks to which he discovered theatre, dance, the possibility of expressing himself through gesture and movementwho then ferries him to the circus.
First the interview, then the performance
The Cirko Vertigo Academy, which in twenty years has welcomed students from 50 countries around the worldis structured as a training agency accredited in the Piedmont Region and has entered into an agreement with the Department of Humanistic Studies of the University of Turin, thanks to which DAMS students will be able to follow courses at Cirko Vertigo and vice versa.
The theses will be discussed on Tuesday the oral interview in front of the commission, then the live or video performancefor the evaluation of physical and artistic skills. Among the recent graduates are the Frenchwoman Catherine Broad and her life and circus partner Bernhard Bader.
«I learned a lot», says Catherine, «I broadened my knowledge and now I have a much better chance of finding work. At the moment, my partner and I are very busy building our act. As long as we are happy, we go where the wind takes us.”
The recognition that it is not madness
Elena Fresch, 41 years old, from Pordenone, is also close to graduating thanks to a year of studies with which he integrated the professional training diploma in contemporary circus: with his partner Matteo Mazzei he has a company, Nanirossi, and a young daughter, Chloé.
«We are already well integrated into the world of work, live entertainment with our contemporary circus company has been our profession for twenty years: we specialize in couple acrobatics.
With this graduation we will finally make our parents happy that when, twenty years ago, we announced to them: “We’re leaving university – I’m Biology, he’s Computer Engineering – and we’re going to look for a circus company”, they didn’t take it very well. For some time they have always been in the front row with their friends applauding us, but now they will have confirmation that ours wasn’t madness. In Italy it took us a while to recognize ours as a full-fledged profession, but we got there”.
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