This week I was in Latina, Italy where I once again gave a hand to my friends Flor and Nico who were participating in another international circus festival. Once again I was pondering on bringing Julie’s Brompton with me and once again I left it home – festivals are short, intense affairs that leave little time for leisure.
There are two sides to festivals: one is stressful, it is a competition after all, crammed in just a few days – the other is the fun of being involved and interact with colleagues from all over the world. This time was a bit more stressful for me: the lack of proper training and different winch controls resulted in the anxiety of making a mistake during the show (and I made a couple, luckily not when the jury was watching).
Festivals are a showcase for artists as producers of various entertainment companies are in attendance. Nowadays there are many circus festivals all over the world, I would say too many. Moreover, festivals tend to give out numerous awards: it’s not unusual to have two gold, three silver, four bronze and a few special prizes. Thus, at least a half of the acts receive a prize. In my opinion this deludes the value of both the festival and the award. In the end, I think getting a contract from a producer is a better outcome. Being a recognized but starving artist is good for the ego but not for the stomach. Enough already about the circus.
The city of Latina is relatively young, it was founded by Benito Mussolini in 1932. The edifices and the monuments, mainly in rationalist style, were designed by famous Italian architects and artists but nothing was grandiose or remarkable enough to leave an impression on me.
Tomorrow I’ll embark on a plane to fly to my next work assignment.
Latina in numbers:
0 km — distance cycled
23 — circus acts participated in the festival
13 — countries represented by those artists