Knitting Peace
“Is it possible to knit peace?” This is the question behind the new performance by Cirkus Cirkör: a Swedish contemporary circus that aims to promote the circus as a contemporary art form worldwide. Since 2005 Cirkus Cirkör has approached the contemporary circus as an art and pedagogical tool to promote and discuss issues of our contemporary society. Directed by Tilde Björfors, Knitting Peace follows this direction and proposes a parallel between the dangerous life of the contemporary circus artists and our condition as a human being. The performance asks: Why would anyone choose to spend their entire life walking on a thin line?
The answer is left to the emotional stage where each acrobat challenges his/her own aspirations by walking or flying on threads. Circus’ chains and trapezes are replaced by white knitted threads that resemble the thin-line on which we constantly live our lives.
The artists involved are five of the most world-renowned contemporary circus artists: the handstand and acrobatic dancer Jens Engman, the live-knitting Aino Ihanainen: the ring acrobats and rope equibrists Ilona Jäntti and Matleena Laine; and the aerial acrobats and singer Alexander Weibel Weibel. Knitting Peace is an astonishing performance and the artists look like spiders on a stage. They entwine themselves in knit-human compositions that seem to suggest that the only form of liberation for us is to be woven all together.
Knitting Peace will be held at the Dansen Hus in Stockholm on the 15th, 16th and 17th March 2013.
Marco Pecorari – Images Mats Bäcker, Mattias Edwall
