The Trengo Circus Festival, organised by Erva Daninha since 2016 in Porto, with extensions in other cities such as Viseu and Penafiel, celebrates its tenth edition this year with a clear commitment to contemporary creation from Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, featuring three companies: two from Catalonia and one from Mallorca. This programming is part of the internationalisation efforts of Catalan circus supported by the Government of Catalonia, with backing from the IRL.
The programme begins with Kolektiv Lapso Cirk’s Qoroq, a captivating performance set against a strikingly minimalist backdrop. Using as its image a society that depletes its natural resources, the piece questions whether we are capable of jointly creating something sustainable.
The company Curolles will present Tot bé at Trengo; this is a family show in which two madcap and playful artists invite us into their workshop, where the traditional spinning top is transformed into the centrepiece of a circus spectacle never before seen. With each spin and trick, the audience is immersed in a world of boundless imagination.
Finally, the company La Corcoles brings to Porto their H, a 24-minute tightrope spectacle performed at a height of five metres, offering the audience an intimate, fresh and emotive experience that resonates with all ages. An elegant and delicate proposal, it offers a renewed vision of tightrope performance from a close and feminine perspective.
Throughout its history, the Trengo Festival has regularly featured artists from Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. This year, this connection is intensified with the programming of four different shows by three companies: two Catalan and one Mallorcan.
The Trengo Festival stands out for its innovative programming, marked by originality in aesthetics, dramaturgy, and technical execution.
One of the festival’s defining features is its commitment to fostering a close relationship between artistic proposals and the audience, often in natural settings that provide a unique aesthetic backdrop to the performances.
By selecting these three companies, the festival reaffirms its core values, while promoting dialogue between the Catalan and Portuguese artistic circuits. The objective is to create a space for cultural and artistic exchange and encounter that goes beyond the mere exhibition of performances, also encouraging discussions, training, and meetings between creators, programmers and audiences.
