Before the redevelopment, the show begins! Prior to the first hammer blow of the redevelopment work on Ile Seguin, the former site of the Renault factories in the south west of Paris, Madona Bouglione’s circus pitches its tents. In 2014 the Globe will be inaugurated, a veritable circus city with a 2,000-capacity hall, part of the project by the architect Jean Nouvel.

Until then, Alexandre Bouglione’s daughter settles in and plans a site in which the most innovative international creations in contemporary circus can be seen.

Her Circus in Progress opens on 14th June with two very unusual shows. The first is the new show by Madona Bouglione, Pentimento, which revisits in a very visual way Tchaikovsky’s ballet  Swan Lake, bringing together 14 artists combining ring arts, acrobatics, dance, music, theatre, video and mime. Clowns lead the dance accompanied by a symphonic pocket orchestra playing live the Russian composer’s well-known score.

You can then see Sarkha (the Cry) performed by the Najma Company. Directed by Laurence Levasseur, nine artists from the Tunis National School for Circus Arts express their dreams and their wounds using circus techniques, dance and theatre. Created in 2009, this show appears premonitory seen now in the post-revolutionary context which now governs the destinies of a whole generation.