Perfect Balance, Insatiable Hunger – Circa is Back to Chamäleon Berlin

World-class contemporary circus company Circa returns to Chamäleon Berlin with two super hits.

The audience could not get enough, now it is getting more: As recently as January, the contemporary circus company Circa ended a season at Chamäleon Berlin that broke all its records – now the Australian ensemble returns to the theatre at Hackescher Markt with two of its biggest successes. Starting in August with Humans 2.0, a circus “symphony of acrobatics, sound, and light,” as the group describes the piece; followed in October by Wolf, “a piece about the untamed inner spirit that forges its own path.”

In typical Circa fashion, both pieces feature acrobatics at the limits of human ability and choreographies of unbridled emotional energy. Both seek answers to the question of what it means to be human. However, they take different paths to find answers, like two adventurous journeys from different ends of the world heading for the same destination. For Chamäleon’s Artistic Director Anke Politz, bringing Humans 2.0 and Wolf to the theatre back-to-back in the second half of 2025 is “an inspiring and perfect combination”. “This will allow two ground-breaking works of contemporary circus to communicate with and enrich each other.”

Humans 2.0 celebrated its Chamäleon premiere in November 2021 as part of the “Circa – A Company in Residence” programming and as such has a special significance for the theatre and its audience: The piece was created during the pandemic, at a time when theatres were closed and no one knew how and when art, culture, and contemporary circus would continue. The performance in Berlin felt like a liberating act for the people on, behind, and in front of the stage. There they were again: people coming together, holding, and supporting each other. Pyramids of people rising and falling; bodies flying through the air and landing in the arms of others. Except it had rarely been shown to such perfection and, above all, with so much feeling.

For Circa’s Artistic Director Yaron Lifschitz, Humans 2.0 is “a fundamentally optimistic piece” about a group of people trying to create balance and harmony from chaos. “Everything is in constant motion and change, forever searching for that fleeting moment of equilibrium.” The artists move around the stage as if in a trance – jumping, dancing, and falling in harmony with the innovative light installations by Paul Jackson and the ethereal electro drum soundtrack by techno artist Ori Lichtik. “Working on this piece during the pandemic was an incredible experience that I will never forget,” says Lichtik. “I was never able to work with the ensemble in the same room, yet we created something unique together over the distance.”

Lichtik also created the music for Wolf, closely collaborating with the ensemble this time. The success of the piece among critics and audiences has overwhelmed everyone involved. The co-production between Circa and the Chamäleon premiered in Berlin in September last year and sold-out performances for months to come. For director Yaron Lifschitz, however, it is not just the soundtrack that connects the two pieces: “Humans 2.0 and Wolf explore very similar areas,” he says. “How can we exist together while remaining ourselves? What forces can we unleash together and when are they destructive, when are they creative?”

But while Humans 2.0 focuses on the desire for harmony and balance, Wolf is an invitation to discover the wildness within. The first half of the piece comprises sophisticated solos and duets in which the acrobats reveal their fears and doubts – in the second half, they become a pack and create a great collective dance of frenzy and sensuality, at times as many as ten acrobats on stage at the same time. “Being a wolf means desire,” says Yaron Lifschitz. It doesn’t matter whether it’s about sex, blood, power, or love. “These often invisible, sometimes dark forces fill us with energy and meaning, but they can dangerously shake the order of the world at any time.” The pack does not seek balance, but satiation. “But the wolves’ hunger is endless – the search for the next meal goes on and on.”

For Chamäleon Artistic Director Anke Politz, both pieces are exemplary of what circus can achieve and portray today. “The urge to evolve, the longing for connections, and the joy in the messiness of being human are key elements of contemporary circus and the building blocks of these two pieces,” she says. Humas 2.0 will be presented by a completely new ensemble; in Wolf, the audience will see some familiar faces from the previous season.

Circa is one of the most renowned and prestigious circus companies in the world, having reached more than two million people in more than 45 countries with their work. The ensemble from Brisbane, Australia, first became known as Rock n’ Roll Circus in 1987, before re-establishing itself as Circa in 2004 under its new director, Yaron Lifschitz, and expanding. “Circa has always been about keeping the world moving,” says Lifschitz. “Less with mere political statements than with the dissolution of boundaries: those between art and entertainment, between virtuosic and meaningful, between right and wrong.”

With this principle – and the unconditional resolve to constantly reinterpret and merge acrobatics, dance, and theatre – Circa have become pioneers of contemporary circus. Their pieces have won the Helpmann Award, Australia’s most coveted prize for the performing arts, several times. In 2024, Yaron Lifschitz was honoured by the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) with the Distinguished Artist Award. He thus joins the ranks of outstanding artists such as Robert Lepage, Laurie Anderson, Leonard Bernstein, and Pina Bausch.

Circa has a long history with Chamäleon Berlin. The ensemble first performed its Wunderkammer piece there in 2011, followed by six more works over the years – including audience favourites such as Circa’s Peepshow and the almost intimate What Will Have Been.

The group moves fluidly between different genres and stages – for Opera Queensland, for example, Yaron Lifschitz has created a new version of “Dido & Aeneas” in collaboration with Libby McDonnell as co-director. The circus, however, remains the cornerstone and measure of all things: “It may be a bold claim that such ancient but vital concepts as ecstasis and catharsis could find their true home in the circus,” says Yaron Lifschitz. “But I am delighted not only to be making this claim with Circa, but also to be living it.”

Wolf

Season: Oct 23, 2025 – January 18, 2026 

Direction: Yaron Lifschitz
Music: Ori Lichtik
Light: Alex Berlage
Costumes: Libby McDonnell

Humans 2.0

Season: Aug 21 – Oct 19, 2025

Direction: Yaron Lifschitz
Music: Ori Lichtik
Light: Paul Jackson
Costumes: Libby McDonnell

More information: chamaeleonberlin.com/en/

Main image: Photo Andy Phillipson