Monte-Carlo 2023
It is hard to describe the emotion and excitement that FMC’s members, guests of the Festival, circus fans, and the audience experienced during the 45th International Circus Festival of Monte-Carlo combined with the 10th New Generation Festival.
It was exciting and inspiring to meet and greet the members, supporters, and friends of the Federation.
As usual, FMC had its business meetings and programs during the Circus Festival.
The Federation held its yearly General Assembly on the 20th January. Besides the official program the participants had a special opportunity to listen to FMC’s guest speakers.
Moises Gasaui, President of the Latin-American Circus Federation (LACF) spoke about the situation of the industry in the continent, and about the important role of the LACF. 8 countries form part of the organization. Their common interests and hard work help a lot in the promotion, preservation and recognition of circus arts.
Chris Berry, famous media personality, and respected circus historian, who has the biggest circus poster collection in the United States, introduced the importance and the varied methods of preserving old circus posters, and spoke about the valuable historical information those posters contain.
The Federation and the European Circus Association in collaboration organized a combined Symposium with quest speakers which attracted the highest attendance in years.
The title of the Federation’s program was: “Think in opportunities and possibilities”.
The event was moderated by Alex Sijm with the participation of Gérman Aguirre (Chile) Board member of LACF and circus owner. He made us familiar with the specific features of the Chilean circus, and its current characteristics.
Menno van Dyke (NL) circus artist and artistic director of Circusstad Festival, a yearly festival for contemporary circus in his hometown of Rotterdam took the floor next. Mr van Dyke spoke about the challenges of his new tasks as artistic director.
Atze Lubach (NL), Executive Producer of Duursma Events Group, market leader in X-mas circus events, described his company and gave a short resume of its rapid development.
Fred Serex (Australia) is a Swiss-Australian show producer, founder and director of Spectacular TV, the first on-demand streaming platform that is fully dedicated to the circus and performing arts. Mr Serex’ s presentation was an eye opening explication about the importance of the worldwide online platform, and its contribution to the promotion of circus arts.
The Symposium gave a warm welcome to Mr Kenneth Feld, CEO of Feld Entertainment, who talked about the concepts and the preparations and studies made before the reopening of the Greatest Show on Earth in September 2023.
On the 22nd January, Sunday night, before the announcement of the winners of the main awards of the Festival, the Special Prizes were handled in the ring.
The Federation’s Special Prize went to the Show and Ring Managers leaded by Mr Enrico Carolli.
We congratulate to our colleagues, Corinne Paolini, and Joannes Bernard for getting the Special Prize of the European Circus Association.
Congratulation!
The Silver Clown awarded tiger act of Bruno Togni won also the Prize of the Audience during the 45th International Circus Festival of Monte-Carlo.
More than 10 000 spectators voted for Bruno Togni’s wonderful cage act. Not only the visitors but also the Jury Junior decided to select this act as favourite.
Besides the professional Jury’s award it was a huge recognition and acknowledgment of the young animal trainer in general who following the family tradition demonstrated his professionalism. We all admired the harmony and mutual respect between human and animals during the presentation.
