Closer / Scarecrow

Cie Pied Perchés – Closer

SCARS is a three-part research project by the company Cie Pieds Perchés exploring intergenerational trauma and asking how violence and pain are passed down from one generation to the next, becoming embodied memories. The first part is titled Scars / la débattue, and the second SCARS / CHILDREN OF BAKELITE. The performance Closer is the third part of this project.

How do the people we love remain within us, even after they are gone?

In this performance, Marina Mezzogiorno-Brown traces her own experiences with death through the pulsating rhythm of disco, liberation, and the unspeakable loss within the gay community she was born into in 1980s Los Angeles.

Drawing from the electrifying world of 1970s and 1980s club culture, she explores this moment of radical freedom alongside the intersection of shame, fear, and tragedy into which AIDS cast everyone.

Closer draws on costumes, contemporary circus, aerial acrobatics, physical theatre, and oral history interviews to weave a story of love, tragedy, and the extraordinary healing power of memory — and the club scene.

Lenka Švolíková – Scarecrow

There is an idea — a kind of scarecrow. It is a scarecrow not because it is difficult to grasp, but because everyone understands it. According to this idea, we have two true homes — the Earth and the body — and precisely because everyone understands this, everyone immediately forgets it in their joy. And then there is always the circus, making… well, a bit of a circus, a lot of confusion, a touch of fun, and reminding us of both.

Scarecrow is a new circus performance currently in the work-in-progress stage. It explores questions surrounding climate change, how not to remain indifferent to these issues, and how not to lose one’s mind in the process. As part of its artistic research, the project seeks ways to address these themes on stage through contemporary circus techniques. The indoor version, titled In Scarecrow, primarily draws on aerial acrobatics using a counterweight system and contact manipulation with a crystal ball.

Creative team

Concept / Performer: Marina Mezzogiorno-Brown

Outside eyes: Stéphanie NDuhirahe, Natalie Oleinik, Morgane Widmer, 

Sound design: Roman Džačár 

production: Schmilblick spolek

supported by: Ministerstvo kultury ČR,  Státní fond kultury ČR, Cirqueon, The Goethe Institute and the European Union, KD Mlejn, Industra

This work was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.

#culturemoveseurope #pushboundaries