ZQ co-productions
A selection of our co-productions:
Santa & Glitter – Circus & Divinity
– Cia Bruta Bruja, 2023
Santa & Glitter is the first full-length show by Cia Bruta Bruja.
Under the motto“Life is a Mystery“, the duo celebrate their extraordinary vision of reality, in which playing triumphs over winning and where magic has its place.
A coffee machine is transformed into an oracle, a hairdryer becomes a sacred instrument for spreading happiness and a washing machine forms the door to heaven.
The show explores a space that is less rational, where reality is porous and flexible, questioning common notions of reality and refusing to accept existing social conditions as valid and unchangeable.
Driven by their inner divas, the duo explores their strength, friendship, but also their fragility.
Santa & Glitter is a tribute to the disco culture of the 80s, to their search for freedom in artistic expression and their divine artists. Magical (dis)appearances, trashy ritual and shiny aesthetics call to shine on.
Cia. Bruta Bruja is a contemporary circus company based in Switzerland and Italy, founded in 2021 by Ana Alcocer and Caro Wuttke. Since this year, Eli Cipolea has been part of the troupe as a backstage technician. All members studied contemporary circus at the Flic Scuola di Circo in Italy, where they met. Since 2021, Bruta Bruja has been supported by Sisus Sirkus as an up-and-coming circus company and their first full-length show “Santa & Glitter – Circus and Divinity!” is co-produced by Sisus Sirkus and Zirkusquarter Zürich.
Falling Down the Rabbit Hole
Between fact and fiction, truth and lies
– Cirque du Cercle, 2022
In “Falling Down the Rabbit Hole”, the two artists fall down their very own rabbit hole, an absurd world of information illusions, absurdities and paradoxes. “Rabbit holes can be deep and hard to find your way out of. They can lead one down a path of knowledge and discovery, but also to lies, misinformation and deception. They are simultaneously a paradise for science lovers and conspiracy theorists, and it is often difficult to know where the truth lies. Who is lying to us and who is not? Which rabbit hole leads us to reality, and which one is full of deception? Can we trust the unknown? The piece is inspired by the artists’ reflections on topics such as information overload, conspiracy theories, the boundary between reason and madness and the question of how to find a moral compass in all the chaos.
Cirque du Cercle combines artistry with movement theater, storytelling and comedy. They mainly manage without spoken words, instead using movement and physical expression as language and utilizing abstract narrative forms. They work with improvisation techniques, status play and clowning methods as well as movement research based on their circus disciplines of duo cyr wheel, club passing, hula hoop, juggling and cube manipulation. They draw on well-known techniques from improvisational theater, devised theater and dance choreography. The artistry is integrated into the narrative and vice versa.
The Cirque du Cercle spent a two-week residency in the circus quarters for the final rehearsals and will celebrate its premiere at the ZirQus festival.
Porte-à-faux
A story about the search for the one gate to heaven
– Théâtre Circulaire, 2022
“Porte-à-faux” is a traveling theater piece for two actors, a musician and sixty-seven doors. They immerse you in an absurd universe made up entirely of doors. Small and large doors, rectangular and round, sliding doors, revolving doors… But what are doors actually for?
The story tells of three orphaned brothers: A bald one with a smile, a tousle-head with endless energy, and the eldest who is always well-behaved and quiet, except when he has a musical instrument in his hands. At the funeral of their parents, the priest explains to the three orphans that their parents “took the gates of heaven to fly to paradise”. The brothers have been searching for this gate to heaven ever since. But how can you tell one door from another? For years, the three have been obsessively searching and dismantling all the doors that cross their path. One evening, the brothers hear on the radio that a great revolution is taking place. Without realizing it, they are about to change the world. Will they track down the door to paradise that will allow them to find their parents?
“Porte-à-faux” is a Zirkusquartier co-production. The professional movement theater group Théâtre Circulaire spent a residency at Zirkusquartier in the two weeks before the ZirQus festival, putting the finishing touches to the creation before it was presented brand new at the festival.
Bill and Fred’s Adventures
A clownish dance duo
– Bill and Fred, 2021
“Bill and Fred” have an intelligence all of their own. In a playful atmosphere, the two understand each other without words – wrongly. The high quality of their deeply researched comic language of movement awakens the spirit of innocent play with the seriousness of life. With their absurdity, they take the audience on a journey through their humorous world.
“Bill and Fred” is an all-female clown duo with Elysia Mc Mullen (IE) and Luisa Schmitz (CH). Both come from a dance background and have developed a humorous movement language that focuses on the clownish expression of dance.
The piece “Bill and Fred’s Adventures” is mainly based on the movement language they have developed and consists of a concrete structure and framework in which the characters can unfold in different ways.
After several short pieces, Bill and Fred’s Adventures is their first full-length performance.
For this production, the two artists are working together with the percussionist and musician Samuel Messerli. The music is based on recorded sounds, which are mainly generated by the body’s own sounds (body percussion). This gives the music a direct and raw character.
The ZQ co-production was completed in a six-week residency at the Zirkusquartier and celebrated its premiere here!
Emperor!
Carlos Kaiser – King on the reserve bench
– Vanderbolten Productions, 2020
Carlos Kaiser was under contract with various Brazilian and international professional football clubs for years without having played a single game. How does that work? Based on the biography of Carlos Kaiser, the phenomenon of “imposture” and its mechanisms are examined and tested. What kind of person was Kaiser? What does an impostor like him need to wrap his fellow human beings around his finger? To achieve what he wants? A performing actor and a performing musician ask themselves these questions. They play themselves, slipping into the skin of Kaiser, a presenter and other characters who populate Kaiser’s biography.
Lucas van der Bolten, director, producer and artist from Cologne, is developing a new play with two promising young Swiss stage artists in co-production with Zirkusquartier Zürich: “Kaiser! König auf der Reservebank” was his first project in Switzerland and was a great success!