| Programme | Local Development and Culture |
| Selection | Open project |
| Competition title | Circus for Climate |
| Donorstate/international project partner | NVO “Acting for Climate”, Norway (https://www.actingforclimate.com/) |
| Project national Nr. | EEZ/2021/1/16 |
| GrACE project Nr. | LV-LOCALDEV-0014 |
| Contract No. | 4.3.1-7 |
| Contract Date | 30.12.2021 |
| Project title | Circus for Climate |
| Project promoter | SLLC “Rigas cirks” (https://cirks.lv/) |
| Start of project eligibility | 01.03.2022 |
| Project end | 31.07.2023 |
| Total eligible costs | 231 636.07€ |
| Grant financing | 196 890.65€ |
| National co-financing | 34 745.42€ |
| Project status | Completed |
| Project goal/description | This project explores the collective force of multidisciplinary approach to arts education and activism. We will bring together an international team from Latvia and Norway from fields of contemporary circus and dance, comics, innovative technology and experts of ecology and sustainability to collaborate together and work with youngsters across Latvia around the topic of art activism for sustainability.
During the project we will create 6 laboratories/ workshops during which artists, experts, local professionals from rural areas and youngsters will work together to learn about climate change, sustainability, arts activism and explore artistic methods (circus, movement and comic books) in expressing their concerns and issues that they feel strongly about. The content that will be created during these laboratories will then be used as a source of inspiration for a comic book and a site-specific circus performance involving circus artists from Latvia and Norway.
The result of the project:
During this project we will create 3 professional artistic products on the topic of sustainability and ecology: large scale multidisciplinary performance (with local and international artists), small scale performance (with local artists) and an augmented reality comic book, that will be available as an accompanying tool for performances and as a separate artwork itself. The content of these products will be inspired from the inclusive creation process during the laboratories with youngsters, but the final execution will be done by professional artists. The performances together with the comic book will become a useful educational tool and material to offer to the schools all over Latvia (within an existing program “Latvian School Bag”).
1. Large scale site-specific performance on ecology
Inspired by the work with youth, project partner from Norway Acting for Climate together with circus and movement artists from Latvia will create a site specific performance. As the main tool we plan to use the language of circus and other movement based art fields. The performance will be shown at the end of the project. All project participants from previous laboratories and the workshop will be invited to performance and feedback sessions after the performance. The performance will also be available for general audience members.
The choice of the place/venue will be decided during the project together with artists and involved participants.
2. Small scale mobile performance on ecology
While working on the large-scale performance Acting for Climate will direct a mobile version of the performance with local artists. While keeping the same general idea and influences from the work with youth, this performance will be created in a format that could be adapted to different spaces. As this performance will include only local artists and will be adaptable to different spaces, it will tour around Latvia after the project and ensure the sustainability of the project. In addition, Acting for Climate will be able to recreate the performance and tour in Norway and elsewhere.
After each performance artists will also organize discussions with the audience to create a momentum of reflection and create a deeper connection with the artwork, as well as awareness of the discussed topic.
3. Comic book
The storyline of the comic book will be based on the topics, issues and questions that youth will define with the laboratories leaders around art activism and sustainability.
To make the comic book more original, interactive and attractive to the youth, we will use Augmented Reality technology to make the images “alive” when they are scanned with a smartphone. With the help of our partners, Acting for Climate and local circus artists, we will film small videos that will be connected to the storyline of the comic book and will make the characters come to life. The book can be used in a classroom as a way to connect art with science and ecological studies in the context of the educational program in schools or as extra material accompanying audiences before and after the performances. |
| Implementation place | Visa Latvija |
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