ICARUS I work-in progress

While it may sound incredible to our festival’s younger participants, the world of a century and a half ago had neither aeroplanes nor cinema nor electronic music. Flying inside an iron bird, let alone doing so whilst watching a film about Queen, was pure fantasy. Yet our culture has dreamed of flight ever since antiquity, when the tale of Icarus first posed the question: what happens when humans reach for the impossible? 

But how can that same daring quest be put on stage? This challenge is what propels contemporary circus artist Džiugas Kunsmanas. Employing physical comedy, contemporary circus, and everyday objects, he becomes a dreamer who pursues his visions relentlessly, if not always successfully. Early cinema footage and a soundtrack played on early electronic music instruments, each with a unique sound, accompany the protagonist’s theatrical adventures. 

Džiugas Kunsmanas is a contemporary circus artist familiar to Kaunas audiences for his appearances in productions by Gildas Aleksa, Indrė Puišytė, Marius Pinigis, and Adrian Carlo Bibiano. After completing an acting degree at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, he went on to study circus arts at Flic Scuola di Circo in Turin, Italy. Among the school’s world-class circus masters, at the time, were Claudio Stellato and Roberto Magro – both well-known to this festival’s audience – with whom Džiugas later developed close creative partnerships. 

An early sketch of Icarus won the Išeities Taškas (Išeities taškas) competition run in 2024 by Kaunas City Chamber Theatre. Its forthcoming premiere will be Džiugas Kunsmanas’s first full-length original production. 

What once seemed unattainable is now an everyday reality. So – what feels out of reach today? 

The Young Creators Program is supported by ‘Baltisches Haus’.