3 Thrilling New Circuses in Prague

The circus is in town! But there’s no fat lady, no one putting their head in a lion’s mouth and a hundred clowns aren’t going to come out of a Volkswagen Beetle. At this circus, elegance, athleticism and beauty are on display.

Brtnická of course wants the festival to get bigger and more people to attend, but she also says they want to keep a certain atmosphere.

“The companies that are performing are still small, soloists, duos, maybe three performers,” she said. “We like this because then there’s a communication between the audience and the performers.”

Brtnická and her colleague formed Cirkus Mljen also after graduating from the Academy of Performing Arts and producing a successful graduation show. She studied non-verbal theater and in her final years started training in acrobatics.

“We’ve tried many different ways to do contemporary circus, started with a theater focus and then became more inspired by visual arts and then moved into more contemporary dance,” she said. “Circus is a bit of a fusion of all arts – music, dance, visual arts, and we are always trying to find something new.” Cirkus Mlejn performs at the Prague 13 Mlejn Cultural Centre and in addition to about five performances there a month, also tours throughout the Czech Republic and abroad.

“Shanghai at that time was often called the Paris of the Orient, it was a fast-paced, dynamic city, which mixed various cultures, ethnicities, and manifestations of global fashion,” he said. “There’s an acrobatic tradition throughout Chinese history; the tradition and innovation are linked to vaudeville and on the basis of this more than 2,000-year-old art, created a new form of expression.”

The performance will combine kung fu martial arts from the Shaolin Temple, artists from the Peking Opera and other Chinese speciality acts.

“Each girl in the group is a bit different and has different interests in theater, but what bound them to mime was the influence of our friend and teacher Radim Vizváry,” said Mime Fatale producer Alexej Byček. “Also there´s the fact that five girls doing mime in new ways seems to be very interesting for the audience, which keeps coming again and again to our performances – some people even to every showing.”

The troupe is on a mini-hiatus till the spring, their next performance will be May 15 at NoD Theatre, and future shows will be posted on their Facebook page. Called Push the Button, Byček says it combines mime with live beat-boxing and virtual reality based on fighting PC games.

“We think that after some decline, mime is on the rise today, and our motto is that we ‘emancipate mime,’” he said. “We work for it to be more known in Czech society.”

“I think audiences shouldn’t be afraid to visit little performances, even if it’s something that hasn’t been recommended by a friend, something unknown, they should try it anyway and be inspired,” she says. “New things always start small and need to be supported.”

**