Cirkus Cirkör's History

Cirkör is a play on the french words 'Cirque' and 'Coeur', circus and heart. Cirkus Cirkör started as a non-profit organisation in 1995. The first show Skapelsen premiered at the Stockholm Water Festival.

Cirkus Cirkör is today the largest circus company in Scandinavia, with shows on tour over the whole world and circus training for people of all ages and backgrounds. Everything began when Tilde Björfors and a few artists who had fallen in love with contemporary circus took their first step towards the dream.

1995

The creation

1996

Chaos Gives Birth to Everything

1997

Kod XYPÅ

1998

Supercirkör

1999

00:00

2000

Trix

2001

Dom vuxnaMr Pain

2002

Romeo & Julia

2004

99% unknown

2005

Havfruen

2006

Da Da AitschMomo

2007

OdyséenOlika

2008

Inside OutÖsRöktDoverieTrippa Trappa Tvillingpappa

2009

Picnic

2010

Wear it like a crown

2011

Romanesque ArchesUndermänSagocirkus

2012

Knitted Piece

2013

Knitting Peace

2014

UnderartCircus for elderlyVariete vad ni vill

2015

Borders

2016

SatyagrahaLimitsHorisonter

2017

UnderMovementsCirkushoppet

2018

EpifónimaAquanauts

2019

God’s Disobedient RibBloom

2020

Fit in (Passa in)

2021

Circus Days and NightsPuffTangled

2022

Pippi at the Cirkus

1995: From dream to non-profit

There are hardly any reasons for contemporary circus artists to stay in Sweden in the early 90s. But after having organised a 24-hour festival at Orionteatern in Stockholm with 200 young artists and creators on stage, more and more people feel compelled to stay here and build something new.

The dream becomes reality when Tilde manages to persuade some artists to stay in Sweden, and they start creating a show: Skapelsen (The Creation).

Skapelsen & Ur kaos föds allt

Skapelsen premieres in the Royal Dramatic Theatre's tent at Stockholm Water Festival in 1995. We are instantly welcomed into the international circus family, thanks to the Australian circus group Circus Oz, who is the main guest act at the festival. They send their audience to our stage and recommend Skapelsen to the great contemporary circus festival Tollwood in Munich the following year.

Artists in Skapelsen: Henrik Agger, Savanna Agger Forss, Johan Adling, Martin Bejting, Tilde Björfors, Rolf Brattström, Torbjörn Brokvist, Johan Edding, Magdalena Entell, Maja Forslund, Irya Gmeyner, Joel Jedström, Vidar Jedström, Siri Hamari, Minh Tam Kaplan, Nalle Laanela, Niklas Lindgren, Ann-Charlotte Lindqvist, Magnus Lundblad, Ylva Magnusson, Sebastian Melander, Miriam Rivera Godoy, Stefan Schöning, Annika Thore, Karl Stets, Jan Unestam.

Skapelsen evolve into our next piece when ten artists, six musicians and two technicians develop the performance and Skapelsen becomes Ur Kaos Föds Alt (Everything is born from chaos). We perform over 70 shows for sold-out houses over the whole country.

The next step is to build an organisational body. Together, the creators of Skapelsen found the non-profit organisation Cirkus Cirkör. Cirkör’s objectives and statutes state the will to establish contemporary circus as an art form in Sweden, artistically and pedagogically, develop and increase the possibilities of contemporary circus culture, put Sweden on the world map of contemporary circus, and inspire and be inspired by young people and street culture.

1996: 40 000 want to train circus!

Following the touring, there is an increased demand for circus training. We arrange circus schools and open circus training at Stockholm House of Culture, and during six summer weeks over 40 000 visitors show up. After this summer we realise we are not the only ones missing the art form in Sweden. Cirkus Cirkör's passion for pedagogy has been alive ever since.

1998: Super Hero Success

Together with film- and music video director Jonas Åkerlund we nurture a common dream: a huge outdoors performance. With too small a budget, no staff and no backing from a production company we decide to go for it.

Super Cirkör, Under the mighty Western bridge, opens during Stockholm’s year as the European Capital of Culture. Film shown on a giant screen, motorcycles and 30 circus artists require a stage that does not exist in Stockholm. We cover the Western Bridge in canvas, build a giant grandstand, park caravans there for the international artist to stay in, and open the best bar that summer!

The venture is enormous and bankruptcy feels impending more than once. But before the premiere, Jonas Åkerlund's music video for Madonna is released and the show suddenly has the world's hottest director. The audience finds their way - every night people flock under the bridge and Cirkus Cirkör has become generally known.

Tightrope walking in a wheelchair

We start our first circus courses for children and young people with disabilities. This branch of activity grows and develops. Circus educators, who want to discover what every child wants and can do unhindered by prejudices, refuse to read the children’s diagnoses before the
training begins. At first, this raises resistance amongst the adults closest to the children. But when a boy in a wheelchair starts tightrope walking, the scepticism amongst the adults disappears.

2000: A Home in Botkyrka

Cirkör replaces the city centre with the suburbs and makes the move to Alby! Northern Europe’s most modern circus halls are inaugurated with a
circus carnival and ribbon-cutting by the Prime Minister. Cirkör House becomes our base and home and we fill the house with circus. We accept the first class of students for a three-year contemporary circus programme at S:t Botvid’s Upper Secondary School. The professional training programme Cirkuspiloterna, which we started as early as 1997, also moves in with us.

With the blessing of the Municipality, we begin to invade schools in Botkyrka to reach out to our new neighbours and the local community. Circus artists ad musicians with circus wagons, trucks, and a circus exhibition invade each school one day at a time. They occupy the corridors and classrooms, take over the lessons and let the teachers be an artist on a bed of nails.

International breakthrough

The international breakthrough finally comes the same year, with the performance Trix. In collaboration with Orionteatern in Stockholm, the director Lars Rudolfsson and the band Urga, we create the performance Trix. After a sold-out season at Orionteatern, we begin our first major world tour. The Trix tour continues for two years, and in 2001 we achieve another dream – to perform at the most famous venue for contemporary circus, Parc de la Villette in Paris.

2002: Circus & High Culture

We break new grounds this year by taking the circus to the highest of cultural spaces in Sweden: The Nobel Banquette and the Royal Dramatic Theatre.

A national stage belongs to everyone - even a circus from suburbia. We find two challenges in one: to interpret Shakespeare's love tragedy Romeo and Juliet with as little text, and as much circus as possible, and to reduce the distance between the gilded auditorium at the Royal Dramatic Theatre and the concrete buildings of northern Botkyrka. Pretty soon, actors from the Royal Theatre train with our artists in the circus hall, and we have buses ready to take the schoolchildren from Botkyrka to the premiere. Romeo and Juliet is one of both Cirkus Cirkör's and the Royal Dramatic Theatre's greatest cow-pullers. For two seasons, all the performances are sold-out and the production also travels to Vienna for guest performances.

In 2002 we are asked to organise the divertissement at the international televised Nobel Banquet at the Stockholm City Hall. Nobel Laureates happily share the applause with balloon men and acrobats and talk about intuition and creativity as the main sources of their scientific discoveries.

2005: Circus to the Academy

To lobby for Swedish university status for the circus artist education program is not a rapidly resolved challenge. After seven years of work, the Ministry of Education and the Cabinet Office make their final decision. In 2005 Cirkuspiloterna is resurrected as a tertiary programme at the University College of Dance in Stockholm.

After four years of preparatory work and dialogue with the Swedish Arts Council, Stockholm County Council and the municipalities in the Stockholm region, Cirkus Cirkör becomes a regional artistic institution in 2005. The institutionalisation is topped off with Tilde Björfors receiving Sweden's (and maybe the world's) first professorship in contemporary circus, at the University College of Dance.

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