Name: North of Now
Start: 2027-02-11T19:30:00
End: 2027-05-16T19:30:00
Location: CHAMÄLEON Berlin

The world-class company Circa returns to the Chamäleon Berlin with ‘North of Now’

One person stands on the shoulders of another. One jumps; another catches – must catch. There is no yesterday and no tomorrow, only trust, attentiveness and this one moment: the here and now.

In their new production, *North of Now*, the Australian company Circa distils the art of the circus down to perhaps its most essential form: eight bodies, an empty stage and the question of what can emerge between people when they rely on one another.

One of the world’s most successful circus companies is returning for a new season.

Circa and the Chamäleon share a long history: since *Wunderkammer* in 2011, the company has been a regular guest at the Hackesche Höfe; *Beyond* celebrated its world premiere here in 2013, followed by a four-month Circa residency in 2021. In 2024, the joint production *Wolf am Haus* premiered at the theatre and was a huge success. “Every piece by and featuring Circa is a great adventure that takes us down exciting new paths,” says Chamäleon’s artistic director, Anke Politz. “We are very much looking forward to exploring them together once again.”

Since 2004, Circa has reached more than two million people in over 45 countries from its base in Brisbane. Under the artistic direction of Yaron Lifschitz, the company has played a key role in shaping and transforming the international image of contemporary circus. Dance, theatre, movement and extreme acrobatics merge to create a unique theatrical language – virtuosic and always deeply human. What seems impossible for the human body becomes reality.

In *North of Now*, too, people are thrown, carried and caught, their bodies merging into ever-changing forms. Breathtaking group acrobatics meets moments of almost complete stillness. Director Yaron Lifschitz is less interested in spectacle for its own sake than in the moment immediately preceding it: the brief pause before a throw, the shift in weight whilst balancing; the moment when two people must decide to trust one another. “We often spend our lives planning for the future or regretting the past, whilst the present keeps slipping away from us,” he says. The idea behind *North of Now* is that it might, after all, be possible to reach the ‘now’, but only together. “Being present is something that can only arise through interaction with one another.”

The title is inspired by a line from the poet Paul Celan: “In the rivers north of the future, I cast my net.” For Lifschitz, it describes an impossible place and, at the same time, a gesture of hope. “Every acrobatic trajectory, too, leads for a moment into a future that does not yet exist,” he says. You only know whether the catch is successful once it has happened. “The crucial thing is: there is someone waiting.”

An initial version of *North of Now* will be performed at the fabrik Potsdam as early as October. Afterwards, however, the work will be further developed in Brisbane and expanded in collaboration with Chamäleon Berlin into a two-part piece – featuring new aerial acrobatics and choreography created exclusively for the venue at Hackescher Markt.

Chamäleon Berlin is the only production house for contemporary circus in Germany and, since its re-establishment in 2004, has become an internationally renowned creative hub and partner for international co-productions and networks. In 2023, the theatre was awarded the Federal Theatre Prize in the private theatre category.

North of Now by Circa