Where’s the elephant? An interview with Zirkus FahrAwaY

Interview by Agnė Sadauskaitė

Once upon a time, somewhere beyond the mountains, there was a travelling circus called Zirkus FahrAwaY. Every summer since 2010, it packed its caravan and followed winding roads through the Swiss countryside, bringing wonder, surprises, and laughter. The circus grew bigger, the shows more complex to fit in one country, and so one autumn, in 2016, the road led Zirkus FahrAwaY across the seas to Lithuania. Almost a decade later, the caravan returns to Cirkuliacija Festival. Before the next chapter begins, we invite you to hear more about this journey from Valentin Steinemann, who founded Zirkus FahrAwaY together with Solvejg Weyeneth, Donath Weyeneth, and Nina Wey.

"The sky is our tent." — this phrase greets me when I enter your website. Even though you now own a tent, which you didn't have for a long time, and can perform all year round, it occurs to me that you still see the circus as something limitless and boundless. Do you?

Yes, I completely agree. With the tent, we realised that the places where we used to perform in the open air became different. There is now a boundary that people have to cross by entering the tent, but it is still very accessible. At the same time, it gives us many more possibilities for our performances because outside it is much harder to create quiet, intimate moments with the audience. Sometimes you might lose their focus. We like the tent very much because it offers different advantages.

Agnė: Zirkus FahrAwaY started as a summer adventure in 2010. Tell us a bit more about that period.

Valentin: We are four founders who are still in the company. We met in another circus that created open-air shows. I was a technician there, Donath was a musician, Nina and Solvejg were circus artists. We immediately became good friends, but that circus fell apart for various reasons. We realised that there were many small villages in Switzerland still waiting for the circus to come every year. We felt that if this circus wasn't coming anymore, then we should go there ourselves.

We made a small 45-minute show, travelled to those villages and performed in the open air. We thought it was only going to be for one summer, but everywhere we went people asked if we were coming back the following year. That was how we started, in the spirit of a traditional circus: six years in a row, every year we created a new show and travelled around returning to the same places. Sometimes we were more people, sometimes fewer — we invited different artists to create shows together. That was the beginning.

Agnė: What happened during those six years besides the summer performances?

Valentin: During that time, Donath completed a Master's degree in Music, Nina went to circus school in France, Solvejg studied in the Netherlands, and I attended theatre school in Paris. When we had all finished our studies, we bought a circus tent. That gave us the possibility to work all year round. We also started taking more time to create productions, and they became a bit more complex. We changed our approach. Instead of creating a new show every year, we started performing each production for a longer period. We went on our first tours outside Switzerland and began receiving invitations to festivals and theatres.

But our roots are in touring through the same villages every summer. It is a beautiful foundation for us. Whenever we create a new show, we always bring it to those places first, where people are already waiting for us. It gives us the freedom to develop a new production gradually before inviting programmers to come and see it.

Agnė: How many official members do you have now?

Valentin: All four founders are still in the company. In the show Elefant, there are just three of us on stage. We also have two technicians and two people in the office who work on administration and production tasks. Then we have another show in which there are seven of us — we invited different artists for that one as well.

Agnė: You are already "teenagers" in your life as the Zirkus FahrAwaY company. What have been the connecting or defining values throughout these years?

Valentin: We still have the same goals, and we can still work well together. One of the main things we are still convinced of is performing in the moment, live, for different audiences. We also believe it is important to go to places where there isn't much happening culturally, to bring something to those places, to connect people and create experiences that are easily accessible to different audiences.

Agnė: The performance you are bringing to Lithuania is called Elefant. Why did you choose this name?

Valentin: In Switzerland, there are still circuses that work with animals, although not with wild ones anymore, but with, for example, horses. About ten years ago, I went to see a big traditional circus, and it was the first show they had made without elephants because it was no longer possible. I realised that the family who had worked with the elephants was still there, but they didn't really know what to do. They created an act with drones instead. The whole atmosphere felt a bit sad because it seemed to me that they were still not really convinced about working without animals and were only doing it because it was no longer possible.

I also realised that, even though we had never worked with animals and I had always been against it, I somehow felt a certain nostalgia. That experience made me ask myself: what do I actually like about those elephant acts? Elephants have a long tradition in the circus. They have always been closely linked to it and were an important part of it. Of course, there are many things you simply cannot do without an elephant, but there are still qualities you can keep: the feeling that something is big, impressive and extraordinary. Those are things we can achieve without having an elephant.

We always wanted to be a circus, even though we don't come from a traditional circus family. So we started thinking about what elements we really like and why we call ourselves a circus. We found many things that we appreciate and do in our own way, not simply because they come from tradition. That became the basic idea of the show. Elefant is a homage to circus tradition, but interpreted in our own way. The audience sits in a circle, there are other classic circus elements as well, but they are all interpreted differently.

Agnė: When you travel with trucks, vans and a whole convoy of vehicles, you move like a caravan. That also feels like a traditional circus element: travelling big, travelling from one place to another.

Valentin: It was intentional because that was a big part of what we loved about traditional circus. Right from the beginning we were fascinated by that way of living and presenting ourselves on stage. As the years have gone by, we travel like this less and less because we perform more often in theatres and other venues, but we have found more ways to transform that lifestyle onto the stage. Before, the shows were simpler and easier to tour with. Now the productions have become more elaborate, while that travelling aspect has become a slightly smaller part of what we do.

Agnė: You make a lot of your props yourselves. Do you feel that props only serve a function, or do they also influence you?

Valentin: Yes, they do influence us. It also has to do with our backgrounds. I used to work as a metal constructor, Donath and Solvejg worked with wood, Nina with textiles. We are all interested in materials. We make our props and scenography ourselves, and for us it is all part of the same creative process. Sometimes the idea starts with an object and we build our research around it, but sometimes it happens the other way around. It is the same with the music: we create it during the process, not days later or after the scenes are finished.

I think we are always interested in the relationship between the human and the object, and what they do to one another. Sometimes the object takes over and becomes overwhelming, while at other times it is manipulated by the human. Exploring that relationship is what interests us.

We almost never use text, and there is no strict storyline that we tell, so people are free to interpret the performance in their own way. We simply open doors for their imagination, and they often see things that we never thought about ourselves. After the performances, people come to us and share their interpretations, and we are often surprised by them.

Agnė: As with most of your performances, Elefant is recommended for both children and adults. Do they experience the performance differently?

Valentin: Yes, very much so. We create our shows for all ages, although we usually recommend them for children from around six years old because we realised that younger children can sometimes be frightened by darkness or loud noises. But it is completely fine if they are four or five years old; we often have children of that age in the audience.

We like it best when the audience is really mixed. If it is only children or only adults, it does not work quite as well. Because everyone sits in a circle, they can see one another and are influenced by each other's reactions. Children are often the louder because they react much more openly, and that encourages the adults to react as well. Our humour is sometimes ironic, there are direct jokes, so there are moments that adults understand better than children. At the same time, there are plenty of things that children find hilarious while adults find them a little less funny. It creates a nice balance.

Agnė: If the audience gets loud, do you see that as a compliment or as an obstacle?

Valentin: It is very nice. We work with the audience's reactions, and I think that is one of the beautiful things about circus that there is room for those reactions. Sometimes there are scary moments and people scream, and that is completely fine.

Agnė: I'm still on the verge of deciding whether to bring my four-year-old (laughs). But we'll probably give it a try. How much fun do children have at your shows?

Valentin: They have a lot of fun. The background of where the show comes from is not that important for the audience to understand. It is important for us because it explains where the idea came from and how we developed it together. For the audience, the performance works much more through emotions, images and feelings.

Agnė: Throughout our conversation, we have mentioned quite a few comparisons between contemporary and traditional circus. What do you think today's circus offers audiences that other performing arts and disciplines perhaps cannot?

Valentin: It is a good question, and I do not have a straightforward answer because contemporary circus can be anything. It is limitless. When I discovered contemporary circus sixteen years ago, I saw so many things that were connected to it but did not seem connected to it at all as well. I think it is always nice to remain open to surprise and not have this need for strict categories. Actually, it is the same question with other art forms: is John Cage's music, without a melody, still considered music?

Agnė: What makes you happy personally in this journey?

Valentin: What is very important is that it is very accessible and that we are not dependent on language; we can travel to any country and work, making performances. There are illusions in circus, and, for example, juggling is about playing with gravity. Balls that would normally fall are somehow able to fly, and that is something exceptional. There is always this intention to create lightness, to get rid of gravity. This is one of the big themes of the circus. The other big theme is that you do things that create surprise, a sense of wonder.

For me, it is also about experiencing very different audiences, and I really like that. I also like the emotional approach of circus. Circus creates different types of emotions compared to music, for example. Maybe music used to be more intense when it was not everywhere all the time, and perhaps concerts were much more powerful experiences a hundred years ago. But if we compare it to today, circus can take your breath away.

Agnė: This is your second visit to Lithuania and to the Cirkuliacija Festival. What memories do you have from your previous visit? Do you have any plans or expectations for this year's visit?

Valentin: We remember it very well. It was our first big tour in Europe, Cirkuliacija was our first festival, and it was our first time visiting Lithuania. Just before coming to Lithuania, I got my truck licence, so we travelled there with it. We performed in Klaipėda and Kaunas. We built our tent, and people from the neighbourhood became very interested in it. They came to ask what it was, where we were coming from, and they came to talk with us and visit our shows.

We are looking forward to coming back. We are curious to see how everything looks now and how people will react to our performances. This time we will be travelling with our caravan again, so we will get to see much more of the country.