You may or may not have heard that Cirkus Syd have been commissioned by Malmö city and Lund city to joinly develop a new international circus festival. Today we are launching the programme of the 4 day launch event for Southern Sweden Circus Festival which we hope you will all join us for!
In the spring of 2022, Cirkus Syd did a feasibility study on new circus festival. The entire field was consulted locally, in the region, nationally and internationally and approx 70 cultural operators participated, including local and regional authorities, individual artists and companies.
The feasibility study showed that the need is great for a strong meeting place where the industry and the public can meet and develop. That the festival should program circus and neighboring art, as well as being regionally anchored in Skåne to include more playing venues both in town and in rural areas as well as making circus available to wider and new audience.
The preliminary study showed that there is ambition, will and passion to create a festival that can act as a catalyst for a bigger and broader development of the circus arts, partly in Malmö and Lund and on a regional level. There are many circus performances created in Sweden that are not played in Sweden due to lack of places to play and contexts to participate in. Many circus performers express the desire to live and work in Skåne, but the professional infrastructure that would enable a settlement is too weak for that to happen today be a reality.
The city of Malmö and the municipality of Lund have stated that they want to be leaders collaborators in the creation and development towards a biennial circus festival with first festival in 2024, then in 2026, 2028, 2030, etc.
In 2023 the festival celebrates with a 4-day launch. As the organisation is complex to collaborate between several cities and the independent sector we need to practise in real time whilst meeting audiences to learn about how this complex partnership will work in real terms. The work done in 2023 is all about learning and developing a sustainable and strategic foundation for the festival's continued life and growth into a Skåne-wide festival.
The first real festival will happen in and around week 36 of 2024 and will include Malmö city, Lund city and we hope that more municipalities will join the partnership consortia. See below on ways to get involved.
We hope you will join us for the launch event taking place in Malmö and Lund 7-10th of September 2023!
The kick-off for Southern Sweden Circus Festival is realised with support from Malmö Stad, Lunds kommun, Kulturrådet, Region Skåne, Co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.