Pierre Roman
and the whale on the beach
With Pierre Roman, Ralph brings to life a circus character from the past that is very recognizable for seniors. In 2023, Circusstad Festival will bring a city parade based for senior citizens for the first time: a Senior Parade. With this we can treat residents of 10 nursing homes in the Rotterdam region to circus. Together with young circus maker Ralph Öllinger we are developing a circus performance that is suitable for the elderly in nursing homes in all Rotterdam neighbourhoods. Ralph is working together with choreographer Joost Vrouenraets on this unique project.
40 Minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=att5td0lwpI
RE/ACT!
RE/ACT! brings socially relevant themes such as civil courage, responsibility and trust into a performance context and makes the audience and the performers experience and experiment with it.
The performers play with tools of contemporary circus, dance and performance art.
They play a lot. They play with falling and being caught, with being blindfolded, taking risks and trust.
Who will take responsibility at last?
“Theater is a form of knowledge; it should and can therefore be a means of transforming society. Theater
can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it.”
Augusto Boal
45 Minutes
Trailer:
OUT-SIDE-IN
is ego portrait’s (a collaboration between Maja Karolina Franke and Ralph Öllinger) current
research project. The performance we are working on is not a show in a conventional way,
we understand it as a performance process.
All participants -the performers and the audience- can give information from their inside out,
as well as take the outside information in. The aim is to create an honest dialogue.
Therefore the term and meaning of responsibility is an important part of the research.
We are looking for an honest physicality, individually and in connection with each other.
Giving and receiving weight of the other, taking and overtaking responsibility, sharing it or
leaving it to someone else and having trust are big parts ofour research, as well as in our daily lives.
Trailer:
Concept and Performance:
ego portrait - a circus-dance perspective
Maja Karolina Franke and Ralph Öllinger
Outside Eye: Peter Sweet
Video: ego portrait and Lisa Horvath
Music: Christof Ressi
Project supported by:
Come On! Kulturvernetzung Niederösterreich
Red Sapata Tanzfabrik
Meeting Point
Meeting Point is an act/street show ego portrait is currently working on, combining dancing, object manipulation and partner acrobatics.
Coming from somewhere, they meet without knowing each other’s past. Life is too short to think about all the possibilities and their consequences. Going forward, meet, explore, learn and enjoy – this is how Maja and Ralph meet in the centre of the stage. Their different backgrounds are the first markings on the way through their relationship. By exploring the other in relation to oneself they are learning more about how they can connect. This connection finds its manifestation in the urge to merge their disciplines into a frameless form of movement. Out of this experience they gain the courage to commit their bodies fully towards a common purpose. The joy that arises by doing that is what ego portrait wants to share with the public.
Lenght: 15min.
Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twkUxsKkKRU
The Madman
This performance is inspired by the poem The Madman from Kahlil Gibran, and the theme
is the search for yourself. We all wear masks that protect us from the people around us,
but also against our naked self.
We pay for the maintenance of these masks a high price, namely the freedom to explore
ourselves. The central theme of the show is taking off masks.
Lenght: 30min or 60min.
Trailer:
The Sound of Circles
Ralph (Austria - Juggling) and Marko (Bulgaria - Music) wanted to work together since to
their first year of study in Rotterdam at Codarts. They both have a big passion for nature
which connects them in the urban jungle of the Netherlands. While their 3th year in
Codarts, they experimented with music from Emil Tabakov and finally decided to work
together for their graduation act.
This act can remember people where they can find a safe place: In themselves and in
between each other. It is important to understand that a real dialog, with honest listening
and respectful talking can only take place when we are not overwhelmed by our fears.
Lenght: 7min.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjTQvq4PKLQ&t=10s
Cirque PopPOPpop
The tension between Ralph and Stefan is a never stopping vibrating play that
leads only to an end when
they finally meet, like two parallel lines do in the
infinite.
We are looking for the diversity of nothingness on stage while we are at the same
time exploring how much and how direct as possible we can approach the stage.
Lenght: 25min.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/224983119
Androgynous
Is a bizarre modern circus performance in which Ralph Öllinger performs in a black and white
world an androgynous character as it has seldom seen before. The abstract form of three big
balls and one even bigger ball handled in a way so that the audience doesn’t know what exactly
is going on with them, plus a character that is always confronting the present people with their
own inner and outer conflicts by showing them his own perversion makes this act ideal for your
festival.
Lenght: 8min or 15min.
The Teacher
A teacher who studied the physics of the balls too much and became insane, that is
‘’the Teacher’’. This performance is convincing through precise timing, a taking character
and crazy mathematical poetry like it hasn’t been seen in the circus before.
Lenght: 8min.
