2023
St. Louis’ Circus Harmony and Suttgart’s Circus Circuli to meet in Stuttgart, this summer
Thanks to support from St. Louis Stuttgart Sister Cities, St. Louis’ Circus Harmony partnered with Stuttgart’s Circus Circuli early in the pandemic to celebrate the 60th anniversary of their two cities being sister cities. You can see the results in their video, Sister City Circus. During this long distance, digital partnership, the two troupes talked about someday meeting each other and working together in person.
In a meeting in Stuttgart this January, Circus Harmony’s Jessica Hentoff met with Circus Circuli’s Lena Biedlingmaier, and Thomas Schäberle to start planning for an in-person Peace Through Pyramids partnership. Peace Through Pyramids is the program Circus Harmony started to designate partnerships between different groups using circus as the bridge to connect the two. Since 2007, Circus Harmony has partnered with the Jewish/Arab Galilee Circus in Israel for 11 years, the National Circus School in Puerto Rico for two years, and arranged several local St. Louis partnerships between children in different neighborhoods of St. Louis.
The proposed dates for this summer's in-person meeting are July 25 to August 7, 2023. The plan is for members of Circus Harmony to fly to Stuttgart where they will stay at Circus Circuli, create a show with the Circuli students, and travel in Germany performing together. Fundraising for this partnership is starting now. Donations can be made online or mailed to Circus Harmony/ 4120 Parker Rd./ Florissant, MO 63033.
2020
2020 is known for many things, but one thing that may have been overlooked is that 2020 is the 60th anniversary of St. Louis, Missouri, USA and Stuttgart, Germany being Sister Cities! To celebrate, Circus Harmony in St. Louis and Circus Circuli in Stuttgart formed a Peace through Pyramids partnership and co-created a show!
Through a series of online meetings, workshops, and classes the two troupes created 6 different circus acts and then filmed them at iconic architectural locations in each of their cities. Watch the combined video show celebrating the two cities, Sister City Circus!
Circus Circuli’s artistic and education director, Lena Biedlingmaier, said, “In such difficult times as in a global pandemic it is important to break down borders, stick together and make new friends. This exchange and the collaboration with Circus Harmony was a perfect example of this! In addition to the exchange of circus skills, we hope that the world was able to move a little closer together and that our young people were able to experience that language is an important means of communication, but movement and a shared passion can easily shrink language barriers . We hope this is just the beginning of a long friendship and we can meet in person soon.”
This collaboration was funded in part by St. Louis Stuttgart Sister Cities in St. Louis and Stadt Stuttgart and Stuttgarter Jugendhaus Gesellschaft in Germany.
Read more in this article from the Riverfront Times.