Next Door Circus Magazine Next Door Circus Magazine No.1 | Page 7

FINALLY! CONTEMPORARY CIRCUS FESTIVAL

IN LATVIA - FESTIVAL RE RE RĪGA!

RE RE RIGA! is an international street art and world music festival in Riga taking place
annually in August since 2013. The festival’s program involves performances of various
art forms – music, dance, contemporary circus and street theatre. This year, festival RE
RE RIGA! will be held from 6th to 9th August, gathering more than 60 artists from 12
countries.
Presenting a fine program of indoor and outdoor shows, it can be considered the biggest contemporary circus festival in the Baltics. But is it enough to be the biggest to
make an impact? And is it actually the aim of the festival, or is it just one of the elements of the Riga 2014 European Capital of Culture programme? I tend to think the festival
has made its choices to show that they care about the future of circus.
In 2014, for the first time, the festival has organised an educational program. The circus school is taking place in the park next to The Riga Congress Centre. In collaboration
with circus studios from Daugavpils, Salaspils and Riga, as well as individual local artists,
there will be numerous workshops for kids as for adults and even for professionals. It is
significant that students and their professors from traditional circus schools are ready
to come and help a contemporary circus festival. For a long time there were no links
between them in Latvia. Of course there is still a long way to go, but could it form the
beginning of the transformation of the Latvian circus? More big news: in cooperation
with Next Door Circus, the festival will offer three workshops of aerial acrobatics with
Natalie Oleinik and Sebastian Kann from the USA. (Read more about them in the following interview)
In order to promote contemporary circus during summer, the festival visited different
cities and events presenting juggling workshops and the inspiring documentary about
circus “Grazing the Sky” by Horacio Alcala.

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