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68

Circa, Franui Musicbanda

Urlicht Primal Light

Gustav Mahler goes Circus

Tickets: from 45€ to 55€
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Teatro Romano
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Friday
4
July
2025
at
21:30
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Saturday
5
July
2025
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21:30
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Saturday
5
July
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21:30
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2025
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2025
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Durata 70 minuti
Dance

Urlicht Primal Light

Synopsis

Urlicht Primal Light brings together Franui, a company of Circa acrobats and young performers from GmC lighthouse to create a new acrobat-music-theatre creation. Based on the companies shared love of Mahler’s songs, the musical spine is Franui’s Mahlerlieder album, which will be edited, augmented and adapted for this live musical performance. Accompanied by physical score developed by Yaron Lifschitz and Circa acrobats bringing the flavours and textures of Mahler, as interpreted by Franui, to life. This is a concert of new perception with twenty artists as field researchers, stimulated through discovery and appreciation, navigating this exquisite world together before us, to utter delight.

Credits

Programma

Created by Yaron Lifschitz and Franui Musicbanda

With Circa Ensemble and GmC lighthouse

Directed by Yaron Lifschitz

Musical direction Andreas Schett

Arrangements and composition Markus Kraler, Andreas Schett

Based on Lieder by Gustav Mahler

Lighting Yaron Lifschitz, Mark Middleton

Costumes Libby McDonnell

Costume collaborator Anna Handford

Production manager Mark Middleton

Sound manager Stefan Schett

Executive producer for Circa Danielle Kellie

Curator and creative producer Brigitte Fürle

Circa Ensemble

Jon Bonaventura, Holly-Rose Boyer, Helga Ehrenbusch, Chelsea Hall, Samuel Letch, Laya Mauelshagen, Oscar Morris,  Darby Sullivan, Joshua Strachan, Christina Zauner

Music by Franui Musicbanda

Johannes Eder clarinet, bass clarinet

Andreas Fuetsch tuba

Patrik Hofer trumpet

Romed Hopfgartner soprano and alto saxophone, clarinet

Markus Kraler double bass, accordion

Angela Rainer harp, zither

Bettina Rainer dulcimer

Andreas Schett trumpet

Martin Senfter trombone

Nikolai Tunkowitsch violin

GmC lighthouse
Lea-Lou Blaas, Jonas Brunnauer, Felix Gschwendtner, Amalia Herzog, Ksana Körner, Simon and Stefan Miller, Lina and Anna Schmarantzer, Elisabeth and Salma Shammout, Alma Wellenger, Ylvie Zopf

Training coach Katharina Angerer

Executive producer European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut 2024

Coproduction European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut 2024, Circa Contemporary Circus, Franui Musicbanda, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi

Under the patronage of the Australian Embassy in Italy

Circa acknowledges the assistance of the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body and the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.

Italian premiere

INFORMATION

Ticket holders for one or more performances at the Roman Theatre may collect a corresponding number of free admission tickets to the National Archaeological Museum and Roman Theatre of Spoleto at the following locations:

• Festival Box Office & Merchandising
Via Saffi 12 – open daily from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.; from 23 June: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; from 28 June: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

• Festival Box Office Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti
Via Vaita Sant’Andrea 12 – open from 27 June to 13 July 2025, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. (closed on Mondays)

• Theatre box offices – open from one hour before the start of each performance.

Please note that dates and times may change.
For updates consult the website www.festivaldispoleto.com

By Gaia Clotilde Chernetich

At first glance, the pairing of Gustav Mahler’s music with contemporary circus might seem, to say the least, unexpected. And yet, this is one of those rare encounters whose fertility—alongside its uniqueness—offers audiences an experience as surprising as it is genuine. The collaboration between director Yaron Lifschitz, one of the most innovative figures in contemporary circus, and the Franui Musicbanda brings together diverse artistic and cultural dimensions.

The Australian company Circa Contemporary Circus, founded in 2004, appears here in the national premiere of Urlicht Primal Light, performed with the young artists of the GmC Lighthouse. Internationally acclaimed and among the most prominent companies in the world, Circa masterfully blends circus acrobatics, contemporary dance, and theatrical expression—each brought to its highest level. Their repertoire, rooted in a sophisticated approach to physicality and sonic space, now includes over twenty productions developed in dialogue with chamber, symphonic, and operatic music traditions. Based in the Brisbane region, Circa’s shows tour globally and have mesmerized more than two million spectators worldwide.

Franui Musicbanda, by contrast, is a musical ensemble founded in 1993 in East Tyrol, Austria. Their name—an homage to an alpine pasture in Innervillgraten, the childhood village of many of the musicians—hints at the group’s strong sense of place. Franui’s work spans genres, blending jazz, folk, contemporary, and classical influences. Their performances might best be described as “creative collaborations” with the original compositions they reinterpret. Much like reenactments in the performing arts, their reworkings may at times “betray” the source material in order to reveal new dimensions; at others, they enhance the beauty of the originals through reinterpretation, improvisation, and recomposition.

The convergence of these two creative universes is born of a shared fascination with Mahler’s music. As Andreas Schett, a member of Franui, explains: “Gustav Mahler is our neighbor. Dobbiaco, where he spent the last three summers of his life, lies just beyond the mountain from our home village, Innervillgraten. When we listen to his music, we feel a profound connection to him. There’s nothing more exciting than fusing this sonic world with the visual and physical language of the Australian company Circa.” Yaron Lifschitz responds: “What Franui does with Mahler, Circa does with circus. We begin with tradition—respectfully, yet innovatively—to discover new forms of poetry. Our aim was to create a symphony of bodies and music, capable of stirring emotion.”

Thus Urlicht Primal Light unites two seemingly distant worlds—Austria and Australia—that prove to share a common poetic impulse. Franui’s refined musical sensibility engages in dialogue with a stage inhabited by multiple disciplines—circus, theatre, and contemporary dance—that blend and dissolve into one another. Both groups share an “extra-disciplinary” approach: a desire to stretch creativity beyond the conventional boundaries of their respective fields.

There are, in fact, many intrinsic elements that circus, music, and theatre hold in common. Their histories have long been intertwined, but in the past two decades especially, all three have undergone profound renewal—reaching new audiences and absorbing narratives once confined to a single art form. Depending on how artists present them, and how audiences receive them, circus and theatre—together with music—become expressions of a dynamic, proactive cultural vision, capable of moving the world and reshaping our collective imagination. In this sense, the stage becomes a kind of highly specialized laboratory: a site where distant cultural particles and nuclei—separated by time and space—can collide and spark transformation. Following this line of imagery, the history of the arts might well be rewritten as a series of both collective and individual experiences, where each perspective contributes to a broader opportunity to participate, to enjoy, to learn, to reflect, to express, to celebrate—and at times, to question.

These “performative universes,” transcending geographies and cultures, converge to reveal how the daring feats of circus can stand alongside the surprising power of music and the evocative storytelling of theatre—each passing down, from generation to generation, stories drawn from the flow of time itself.

From the audience’s point of view, the experience of a theatre or a circus tent is not, in essence, so different. The fixed architecture of the theatre finds its perfect counterpoint in the circus’s nomadic spirit. They are two sides of the same coin—a coin that, in fact, represents humanity itself, whose evolution has explored the virtues and shortcomings of both stability and movement. When the house lights dim, an experience begins that contains all possibilities. In Urlicht Primal Light, we encounter the theme of the journey in its dual form: an inner, dreamlike voyage and an outward one, inviting us to new places, languages, sounds, scents—and to bodies, gestures, and emotions.

And thus, theatrical magic becomes something that reshapes its own boundaries. To be part of the audience is to take a spectacular leap—usually while seated. Sheltered by the darkness, our eyes become channels for images that speak to us intimately, transporting us back in time or projecting us into imagined futures. During the performance, we may rediscover the wide-eyed wonder of childhood. It will happen as we listen to the Lieder of a towering composer, Gustav Mahler, who—like Circa’s contemporary circus—was able to fuse elements of everyday simplicity with grand orchestral scores, forging a refined and astonishing complexity.

scarica pdf

Dates & Tickets

Tickets: from 45€ to 55€
INFO BIGLIETTERIA
Fri
04
Jul
2025
at
21:30
Teatro Romano
Palazzo Due mondi
Sat
05
Jul
2025
at
21:30
Teatro Romano
Palazzo Due mondi
at
Teatro Romano
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Timetable
28 Giugno
11:00
12:00
13:00
14:15
15:15
16:30
17:30
18:30
19:45
20:45
29 Giugno
11:00
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19:45
20:45
30 Giugno
11:00
12:00
13:00
14:15
15:15
16:30
17:30
18:30
19:45
01 Luglio
10:00
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17:45
20:30
21:30
02 Luglio
10:00
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04 Luglio
11:00
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05 Luglio
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06 Luglio
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07 Luglio
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08 Luglio
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09 Luglio
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Biographies

Circa Contemporary Circus

Circa Contemporary Circus is one of the world's leading performance companies. Since 2004, from its base in Brisbane, Australia, Circa has toured the world - performing in more than 45 countries to over 2 million people. Circa's works have been greeted with standing ovations, rave reviews and sold-out houses across six continents. Circa is at the forefront of the new wave of contemporary Australian circus - pioneering how extreme physicality can create powerful and moving performances. It continues to push the boundaries of the art form, blurring the lines between movement, dance, theatre and circus. Compelled by the question ‘what is possible in circus?’ Circa is leading the way with a diverse range of thrilling creations that ‘redraw the limits to which circus can aspire.’ (The Age). Under the direction of circus visionary Yaron Lifschitz, Circa features an ensemble of exceptional, multi-skilled circus artists who have been a regular fixture at leading festivals and venues in New York, London, Berlin and Montreal with seasons at Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Barbican Centre, Les Nuits de Fourvière, Chamäleon Theatre as well as major Australian Festivals. Visit circa.org.au to find a Circa performance near you and discover why Circa has been hailed as nothing short of ”... a revolution in the spectacle of circus.“ (Les Echos). Circa is committed to fostering the next generation of circus artists and runs public circus classes from its studio in Brisbane. Circa also runs regular circus programs with communities throughout Queensland and around Australia. As a champion of live performance, Circa was the Creative Lead for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games arts and cultural program.

Yaron Lifschitz

Yaron Lifschitz is a graduate of the University of New South Wales, University of Queensland, and National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA), where he was the youngest director ever accepted into its prestigious graduate director’s course. Since graduating, Yaron has directed over 80 productions including large-scale events, opera, theatre, physical theatre, and circus. His work has been seen in over forty-five countries and across six continents by nearly two million people and has won numerous awards including six Helpmann awards and the Australia Council Theatre Award. His productions have been presented at major festivals and venues around the world including Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Barbican, Les Nuits de Fourvière, Chamaleon and all the major Australian festivals. His film work was selected for the Berlin and Melbourne Film Festivals. He was founding Artistic Director of the Australian Museum’s Theatre Unit, Head Tutor in Directing at Australian Theatre for Young People and has been a regular guest tutor in directing at NIDA. He is currently Artistic Director and CEO of Circa and was Creative Director of Festival 2018: the arts and cultural program of the 21st Commonwealth Games.

Franui Musicbanda

Franui is the name of a mountain pasture close to the small village of Innervillgraten, located at 1,402 meters above sea level in East Tyrol in Austria, where most of the Franui musicians grew up. The Musicbanda of the same name have been playing together in nearly the same lineup since 1993 and are frequently invited to perform at major festivals and venues throughout Europe. Their adaptations of lieder by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Mahler have earned Franui renown beyond the borders of Austria. The ensemble regard themselves as a “transformer station between classical music, folk music, jazz and contemporary chamber music;” sometimes the original is lovingly celebrated in all its beauty, at others it is turned upside up (or down), stripped down to its bare bones, enhanced, painted over, elaborated, in a process that blurs the boundaries between interpretation and improvisation, between arrangement and (re)composition. For their live shows and music theater productions Franui frequently collaborate with other exceptional performers, including baritone Florian Boesch, puppeteer Nikolaus Habjan, Viennese song-duo Die Strottern, comedian duo Maschek, actor Nicholas Ofczarek, etc.

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