Review from: Cirqu’ Aarau Festival, Switzerland; 18th June 2025
A bright, white circular floor cloth is laid out on a black stage with a chalk sign saying ‘Welcome to Ceramic Circus’ suspended in the middle. There’s a drum, cymbal and stool in the ring, which is bordered by other cymbals, a bicycle, runs of cable and a doorway edged with lights.
There is one performer, Cie. unlisted‘s Julian Vogel, who sets up a curtain rail of costumes by the doorway and enters the ring, where he switches the chalk board for a suspended white sphere, like a planet. Sitting on the stool, he commences a sustained drum roll, impassively and with a minimum of extraneous movement. After a couple of minutes of drumming, he picks up the pace then hits the cymbal and promptly returns to the drum roll, again building it, minutes passing. It’s impressive but its relentlessness leans towards it being challenging rather than enjoyable. Is an obsessive compulsion to see how long you can drum roll for enough of a reason to put it before the audience? But this seems to be a show about obsession, seeking to control things that perhaps cannot not be controlled.
The risk is that people being turned off by the extended drum roll may set them against the coming sections… which would be a shame, for they are much more thrilling.
Between each section of the show there’s a costume change – variations of t-shirts, shorts and trousers. A cymbal is hit at the side of the stage, triggering a recorded drum roll. This section sees Vogel taking to a bicycle, spinning around the ring and picking up speed. As he does so the white ‘planet’ spins in a gradually bigger arc until it is at head height. Vogel ducks and dives as he cycles to avoid being hit by the sphere as it swings around the ring. It’s suitably accompanied by game show and circus chase music and drumrolls. Ultimately Vogel crashes.
Vogel now switches to gold shorts, and straps on roller skates as the ‘planet’ circles
As Vogel skates he hits drumroll triggers on the way around, then clips on a drum to play as he skates around with the planet accompanied by a dramatically escalating soundtrack.
Skates off, silver trousers on, Vogel moves to plate spinning with five poles set equidistantly around the ring. The planet still spins, percussion recordings continue, plates spin and at times crash to the ground as Vogel rushes from pole to pole. He sets an oscillating machine in motion by each pole that he attaches the pole to so it can spin autonomously. One of the machines goes bang, cables are pulled everywhere, plates crashing. The music is louder, madder, like a crazed fairground ride as the plates finally all spin.
Changing to a red glitter top, Vogel sits, drinking water and watching as the plates slow and gradually crash to the ground. The ‘planet’ continues to spin before smoking and finally crashing too.
If you are captivated by the drumming at the beginning – or can get over it – there is much to enjoy visually and aurally in this 55-minute show. Technology is used imaginatively, adding to the allure. It is a distinctly personal and curious piece that I suspect some people will hate, but which I found absorbing.
CREDITS
Performing Artist Julian Vogel Concept & Direction Roman Müller, Julian Vogel Sound Design Julian Vogel Mixing & Mastering Raphael Fluri Stage Design Julian Vogel, Vincent Loubert Lighting Noémie Hajosi Lighting Technology Noémie Hajosi / Clara Boulis Valence Sound Patrick Chazal / Luis da Sylva Production & Communication Delia Roulet Administration Madlaina Bundi Tour Coordination Les SUBS – Lucie Brosset-Jolinon Special Thanks to Étienne Manceau, Darragh McLoughlin, Raphael Billet, Jean-Michel Guy, Pia Meuthen, Guido Jansen, Noah Arnold, Finn Curry, Jona Harnischmacher, Philippe Deutsch, Annelies Diezig, Laure Osselin
Production Cie. unlisted Co-production Les SUBS; Le Plus petit cirque du monde – Centre des arts du cirque et des cultures émergentes; Le Théâtre d‘Arles; House of Panama; Südpol Luzern; Plateforme 2 Pôles Cirque en Normandie I La Brèche, Cherbourg, et Le Cirque Théâtre d’Elbeuf Supported by Arts Printing House, Vilnius; Aargauer Kuratorium; Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris; Ernst Göhner Stiftung; Pro Helvetia – Schweizer Kulturstiftung; Kulturfonds Société Suisse des Auteurs (SSA);Luzern Plus; Kanton Luzern Kulturförderung – Selektive Förderung; Stadt Luzern/FUKA Fonds; Le Spot Sion ; Le Théâtre Silvia Monfort
