Majid Movasseghi
Art Critic
Majid Movasseghi | Zurich | Every year, when I open a fresh calendar and the pages still smell of new paper like the first breath of winter, the same familiar image rises before anything else. Not a destination. Not a flight date. An image: a half open theatre door, the faint scent of paint on the stage, a thin yellow light trembling behind curtains, and the distant murmur of an audience that has not yet settled. It has always been this way. Each year begins for me with a door to a stage.
When I travel, the very first thing I look for is theatre. Avignon under its blazing sun. Edinburgh, whose streets feel like an ongoing play. London and Coventry wrapped in their damp twilight. Ireland with its moisture clinging to seats and even to the dialogue. And then Berlin, endless, layered, restless, where behind every corner there might be a new stage, from the legendary Berliner Ensemble to tiny venues marked only by a faded poster. But through all these cities and all these rising and falling curtains, one magnetic thread has always pulled me in a slightly different direction: the circus.
Circus, for me, has never been a place of simple laughter or spectacle. It is a space where imagination does not just awaken, it takes command. A place where logic steps aside so that bodies, leaps, falls, and delicate balances can reveal a truth far older than language. I have often said that performers with red noses do not merely make us laugh. They remind us how easily life itself can turn into a burnt and reddened nose: painful, absurd, and strangely beautiful.
At festivals such as Edinburgh, Avignon, and the Zurich Theater Festival, whenever I spotted a circus tent my path changed. Circus was always a gravitational center, a place where time bent, where bodies spoke louder than stories, and where wonder returned with its full authority. But none of them have lived inside me the way Circus Monti here in Zurich has.
Zurich is home now, with its own artistic pulse. Alongside the Schauspielhaus and the Pfauen, or the intimate rooms of the Bickacker, the city breathes through its circuses as well. Switzerland has three major ones: the glamorous Bellevue giant that dazzles tourists, the seasonal Conelli that lights up the Christmas weeks, and then Monti. Monti, which stands slightly outside the center yet radiates a creativity that places it at the very heart of contemporary Swiss performance art.
Founded in 1985, Monti made a bold decision from the beginning: no animals, only the expressive capacity of the human body. At a time when most circuses were tied to tradition, Monti chose a theatrical vision. Perhaps that is why, over the decades, it has become one of the most respected independent circuses in Europe. Local media often call it Switzerlands most inventive circus, and its annual tour has become a ritual in Zurich’s cultural life. For many families, going to Monti is as essential as autumn leaves or Christmas lights.
Its tent usually rises a little outside the city center, and the walk toward it always feels slightly magical, as if the city loosens its grip while you approach something softer and brighter. This year, from a distance, I could already see a faint golden halo breathing from the canvas, like the warm steam of a cup of tea in the cold.
Inside, a group of twelve performers waited, twelve bodies like the twelve notes of a melody. Half women, half men. Young, bright eyed, carrying an electric energy that arrived even before the music began.
Each segment highlighted one performer, yet the true star was always the group itself: a living organism held together by breath, coordination, risk, and trust. Movements were precise yet playful, daring yet tender. There was the unmistakable scent of endless rehearsals, the quiet authority of a shared idea, and the invisible presence of an ever thinking backstage mind. Monti has always been like this: a circus that does not simply perform but reflects, a place where creativity and pedagogy blend into motion.
When I stepped out after the show, Zurich was dusted with a light baby snow, that delicate first snowfall that barely lands but makes the whole city shimmer. And inside me something bright was awake again: that rare feeling the circus offers, a reminder that the world can still astonish, that wonder is not an illusion but a form of truth. After Monti, Zurich always looks a little softer, a little more alive, a little closer to a dream.
And I know this much: wherever I travel next year, no matter how many theatres I chase, I will follow the circus again. Especially if its name is Monti, the circus that does not just perform, but lights the world again.
