The vital spark
The vital spark of the project was the successful experience of the Circo della Pace (Circus for the Peace), the International season of the social circus held in the small town of Bagnacavallo where all citizens during the Christmas time, provide hospitality to young artists from all over the world. The Circo della Pace is invented and organised by Accademia Perduta, Circo e dintorni and from the Bagnacavallo municipality, two coorganiser and an associated Homeless project partner. Every year a different circus experience is presented with a show and all the money earned from the selling of the tickets is given to the company. Its first edition was in 2007 and it was dedicated to Parada and the children of Bucharest, the second one to the street boys of Nairobi, the third one to Circo para todos of the Colombian children, the fourth to the Mobile Mini Circus Children of Kabul. Last year Circo della Pace received a very prestigious award: the Medal of the President of the Italian Republic due to the solidaristic purpose of this cultural initiative. Under the Bagnacavallo big tent all sorts of people met, not only general audience but also cultural operators, intellectuals and European artists. Some of them saw in Circo della Pace and in its creators the potential to share and spread experiences and reflexions, but above all the personal careers that their institutions took in the same direction. The Homeless idea comes from Alessandro Serena and it develops in particular with the encounter with Kristian Kristof (Budapest Circus) and Bogdan Zajac (Ocelot Foundation, Poland). After that, the desire of creating a project that could give space to the social and educational potential of the circus arts. The partners are differently connected with circus, everyone of them has a specific link with this performing art, different experiences and competences. To melt this different points of view is one of the challenges of this project and, at the same time, the greatest resource of it. The decision among the partners is to develop a cooperation project not only to discuss and show other example of social circus, but to create also a brand new artistic show, involving the different skills of everyone.
