Featuring four circus artists and two musicians, Runners is a physical theater and new circus performance about racing with time, today’s hectic pace of living, and how to slow down. With an exceptional international cast directed by Rostislav Novák and Vít Neznal, the show spotlights a unique set design consisting of a giant moving treadmill.
Praised by The Guardian as “a moving exploration of time . . . through dance, music, acrobatics and dialogue” and an instant hit at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Runners mounts a visually stunning metaphor for the frantic pace of modern life and its unrelenting pressures. The action takes place on A specially designed 10-meter long treadmill. As it moves, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, four performers run, cavort, collide, writhe around, somersault, ride bikes, and perform Cyr-wheel acrobatics with breathtaking skill and athleticism.
“It’s dynamic to look at, has easy to grasp metaphorical strength and is as engaging as a live-action cartoon to watch.” – The List
The performers push past each other on their way somewhere apparently important; the inevitable drag of the machine is resisted as though it were death itself; a technician toys with the treadmill’s speed, testing the performers’ resilience and creativity. An emotionally heightened score performed by two musicians using violin, keys, guitar and voice cocoons the performers’ negotiations with each other and the treadmill. The choreographed movement is expressive rather than flamboyantly acrobatic, although there is an amazing feat of symbiotic human and object engineering involving a Cyr wheel.
The ending escalates in a way you would never expect, allowing you to share in the performers’ determination to give that one last inch of yourself, and just when you think you can’t, you’ll find yourself cheering.
In 2008, a small group of circus enthusiasts created a single performance called La Putyka. Since then, the company has grown into a grouping of almost one hundred actors, dancers, acrobats, musicians, producers, technicians, doctors, make-up artists and other professionals.
Following the unexpected success of the debut show, the brothers Rosťa and Vítek Novák founded Cirk La Putyka. The brothers, artistic director and executive director respectively, have since charted the course of the experimental theater, dance circus, and music group, having performed in over 20 countries, with a network of over 300 collaborators of over 25 nationalities.
Dynamic, innovative, and participatory, Circus Arts (Cirque Nouveau), which traces its roots to the streets of 1970s France, from its inception challenged genre boundaries and blended acrobatic physicality and athleticism with elements of theater, music, dance, new media, and the visual arts. Artistically-driven, politically astute, inventive, rebellious, hybridized: contemporary circus is reinventing itself as a new multidisciplinary genre. This is an art form for our times, provisional, improvisatory, but with the potential for forging a sense of common purpose and embodying community.
The inspiration for presenting this program in Contemporary Circus at PS21 was born at Montréal Complètement Cirque in 2020, organized by TOHU (Monteal’s Mecca for experimental circus arts), where we participated in discussions devoted to commissioning, creating, presenting, and touring International Contemporary Circus Arts performances in North America and around the world. Since then, this collaboration has evolved into an international initiative of a group of dedicated presenters (including TOHU Montreal, Ruhr Triennale, and PS21, among others) that shares resources, opportunities, and expertise to support new creative work.
Join us for a post-show Q&A with the artists with PS21 Executive Director Elena Siyanko at our theater’s Two Pauls Cafe
Direction, concept, Rostislav Novák Jr., Vít Neznal
Choreography, Dora Sulženko Hoštová
Dramaturgy, Petr Erbes, Viktor Černický
Set design, Pavla Kamanová
Costumes, NoN Grata, Mikuláš Brukner
Music, Jan Čtvrtník, Veronika Linhartová, Terezie Kovalová, Jakub Ruschka
Lighting design, Jiří (Zewll) Maleňák
Sound Design, Jan Středa
Physiotherapeutic support, Kateřina Mikynová
Running coach, Ian Adensam Production, Pavel Uhřík Producer, Cirk La Putyka
Photo, Jiří Šeda, Lukáš Bíba
Technical support Daniel Hajtl, Oldřich Procházka, Matěj Pohorský Video, Jakub Jelen
Graphic Design, Adam Willant
