Breaking Boundaries, and Borders, with Cirkus Cirkör

[caption id="attachment_45407" align="alignnone" width="800"] Tilde Björfors. Dawn Watson photo.[/caption]

By Dawn Watson

Tilde Björfors has been pushing the limits for years. So it makes sense that the Cirkus Cirkör founder, known for her exploration of the relationships between borders and risk, would eventually end up at Robert Wilson’s boundary-breaking arts laboratory at The Watermill Center.

[caption id="attachment_45406" align="alignleft" width="300"] Alexander Weibel Weibel. Dawn Watson photo.[/caption]

Taking the theme of being confined quite literally, Ms. Björfors and her Sweden-based group of contemporary circus performers are finding ways to address “Borders” in their artist-in-residence time at Watermill. During their open rehearsal on Saturday, November 7, a handful of members of the Cirkus Cirkör troupe will show the East End the earliest stages of their findings with a multidisciplinary performance including aerials and acrobatics, music, illustration and video image mapping.

“Just as we are inventive in the circus arts, I want to explore how inventive we are in crossing those borders—from one land to another, into freedom, and across cultures,” she said during a visit on her second day in residence at the center this past Friday afternoon. “I want to show how these same innovations can be found in doing the seemingly impossible.”

She’s still in the initial stages of creating the concept, but she does know that the open rehearsal will contain four main components, reports Ms. Björfors. There will be elements from the groups’ hugely successful “Knitting Piece” performances, which attendees of the Watermill Center’s summer benefit, “Circus of Stillness,” experienced in July, as well as selections from Cirkus Cirkör’s “Limits” acrobatic, aerialist and juggling ensemble performances. The multi-disciplinary event will also feature an opera piece based on Puccini’s iconic “Turandot” and filmed projections and installations based on the local environment here on the South Fork.

On Friday, members of the troupe were setting up the aerial rigging outside and practicing their balletic rope skills while the woman who has been hailed as the creator of the contemporary circus activism genre, was putting her mind to stitching together the pieces for the upcoming performance. Sitting on a bare futon in a second floor gallery space, surrounded by artwork and hemmed in by oversized skeins of red and white yarn from the “Knitting Piece,” which she and group brought with them from Europe, she described how the Watermill Center and its surroundings had opened up her creativity.

“How can you not be inspired when you are living among all of this beauty,” she exclaimed, gesturing to the art-filled room. “This is such a strong place with a lot of influence.”

Infused with the spirit of the nearby landscape, woods and beach, as well as the building itself—a former Western Union communication research facility—and its contents, Ms. Björfors wondered at the possibilities for “Borders.” One particular object has already grabbed her interest, a houseplant gifted to Mr. Wilson by Yoko Ono, which the Cirkus Cirkör founder felt represented peace, trust and deep friendship.

Bursting from a terracotta pot, the small green plant’s tendrils trail from its container—breaking the assumed boundaries in a wondrously beautiful and graceful arcs. In a sense, the plant’s simple existence illustrates the possibility of world peace.

Ms. Björfors, who has seen too many examples of tragedy, is hopeful that universal armistice—like the myriad branches of the tiny plant that have randomly escaped their confines—is possible once human being break through our own preconceived limits.

“We build fences around our gardens, walls, barricades, place armed soldiers around our countries,” she says. “But out of chaos comes a new life. Risk taking is what life is all about. We shouldn’t be afraid to open our borders to the unknown.”

Cirkus Cirkör is in residence at the Watermill Center through Saturday, November 7, when the group will hold a free open rehearsal performance from 6 to 7 p.m. For additional information, and to make a reservation, visit www.watermillcenter.org.