Erlend

A one-man acrobatic piece by Jindřich Kopidol, under the direction of Jan Jirák, is accompanied by live music and offers unique acrobatic elements with original balancing objects made of pure wood, metal, and hardened plastic.

The journey of a circus artist is that of a versatile performer, charting a path in the proximity of risk and adjacent to fear. He lets the audience glimpse into his inner world, where he constantly defies the unsteady and unyielding in a never-ending seek for balance. Yet he can change the perspective of his gaze, rising in control of the air and surrendering to earth’s gravity. The whole is a chain of impressive imagery, a melodramatic-lyrical reflection on the life phases of a man who has lost himself and everyone around him. Solitude may create a world in one’s head completely disconnected from the one outside. The artist’s inseparable partners are three musicians: multi-instrumentalists Kryštof Krása, Tomáš Jirák, and singer Klaudia Korbely.

The multi-talented performer and artist Jindřich Kopidol has long worked in the world of new circus and street art and takes the virtuosity of his balancing disciplines such as tightrope walking, balancing ladder, and rola bola to the next level by intensively studying various techniques of physical theatre, dance, and ways of working with expressive art. He has cooperated with CTJ art company, since 2016, where he acts as a qualified rigger.

Jan Jirák is a performer, acrobat, choreographer, and director. He studied at AFUK – Akademiet For Utaemmet Kreativitet (Academy of Modern Circus in Denmark) and at AMU – Akademie múzických umění (Academy of Performing Arts) in Prague. He is a co-founder of Feel the Universe Circus Company. He founded the Prague Handstand School, a project dedicated to the development and education of professionals and the public in hand balancing, flexibility, dance acrobatics, and movement flow. He is a lecturer at the Department of Nonverbal Theatre at HAMU (Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts) in Prague.