5 international magazines

8 performances

8 perspectives

Dear Audience,
we proudly present the first edition of IMAC. Unique in its design, this inter-magazine Circus Festival brings together 5 international circus magazines, 8 performances featured at UP festival 2024, and 8 students from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, who share their thoughts and questions on what is currently shown on stage and in the ring. Their perspectives and approaches are thereby as diverse as their backgrounds: coming from a variety of fields such as literature, journalism, acting or cultural studies, some of them are familiar with the artform meanwhile others offer reflections from the position of a circus-newcomer. What reunites them: A curiosity for the performing arts, which made them chose to study the MA Arts du spectacle. This program offers the discovery of a diversity of artforms – including the circus. In the context of the project Circus | Studies, theatre students at the Université Libre de Bruxelles have the possibility to explore practices of circus dramaturgy while collaborating with upcoming artists, they can take first steps in the analysis and critique of circus performances or contribute to academic conference dedicated to the circus. These adventures ultimately take shape in the form of MA Theses or articles such as the following.

I now invite you to take a seat and let yourself be carried away by the thoughts of our authors. Consent, criticism, questioning – all of this is welcome!

A special thanks to UP – Circus & Performing Arts, the SMART Company, Be Flat, Menteuses Compagnie, Les Filles du Renard Pâle, Théâtre d’un Jour, Cia Basti, Around About Circus, Malabart, Juggling Magazine, StageLync, Dynamo Magazine and the INCAm network, for making this festival possible.

Kind regards,

Franziska Trapp