Next Door Circus Magazine Next Door Circus Magazine #2 | Page 30

The idea to start some kind of collaboration started in 2013. I had heard about the new circus festival in Vilnius but had never been there before. Luckily, I met Audronis Imbrasas, the director of the Arts Printing House, in Den Haag, the Netherlands in 2012, during the dance festival. We should bring something to Vilnius… The proposal to bring something to the festival in Vilnius came from Audronis and from the whole Arts Printing House team. It was a great pleasure for me to share and show what kind of circus we create abroad. So I was very open to bringing some circus colleagues and friends to the festival. After some discussions, the Arts Printing House and I decided to structure the performaces as an open stage. Adapting the Open Stage concept The Rotterdam vision of an open stage was born on May 2012 at Poortgebouw in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Poortgebouw is a community of 30 people with different nationalities and backgrounds living together and organizing different activities. Poortgebouw Open Stage is an event that has taken place every two months for more than two years, with audiences of up to 100 people. It’s an independent event where everything depends on good will and the passion to create, play and perform together. The show is based on individual artists and their solo/duo acts. That creates a show of varied performances in many different circus disciplines. Some acts are completely finished and have been performed many times, some are still works-in-progress: Open Stage is totally open for experimentation and research. That gives more freedom and confidence to the performers