One morning this Spring, offered another opportunity for change, I woke up from a dream of a busy city sidewalk: feet intermingling, darting across the rough surface, dust swirling, objects kicked to the curb, streetlights glared in the distance, puddles splashed under hurried strides. It felt like home. I know and love this feeling of roaming city streets without a purpose or a timeline. I am alone but swaddled in the ceaseless bustle of the city. In the street, I needed no one yet I am with everyone.
Street is the most common point of connection between neighborhoods, people and for me – occupations. Over the decades that love for the street transformed into something deeper: a respite in between and a canvas for creation. Each time in between serious executive jobs in the arts, I found myself organizing processions, dances, and theatrical productions in spaces as diverse as DUMBO Brooklyn, Washington Square in New York, Governor’s Island, the streets of Prague, or the Nevada desert. The street, in all its chaos and charm, became a second home, a respite, a stage where art met life.
In recent years, I directed a large public program in a New York State park with no streets but lots and lots of pavement—a gift I used to its fullest between the business of large scale rock concerts at the Amphitheater.
This summer, offered the opportunity of a break, with the support of my partner, the organization MICC in Montreal and Quebec Government Office in NYC, Institute Ramon Llull, and the warm invitations of my colleagues and artists, I have had immense joy of seeing the many summer festivals I had been too busy to experience: from JetLag in Upstate New York to MICC Montreal and then Europe. On July 26th 2024 my partner Thomas and I raised our glasses to my 51st birthday on a flight Toronto-Frankfurt launching a journey across Europe’s street theater festivals.
Over 46 days, four countries, 450,528 steps, 197 miles walked, and a thousand laughs extracted from our bodies, we stood immersed in the culture of street arts. La Strada in Graz, Austria, KleinesFest in Hannover, Germany, FestArts in Libourne, France, Aurillac Festival in Aurillac, France, Fira Tarrega in Tarrega, Spain, Manifesta in Barcelona, Spain and we threw in a giant floating opera stage in Bregenz Austria. We also engaged with organizations like the Union Fédérale d’Intervention des Structures Culturelles and Formation Supérieure d’Art en Espace Public, Institut Ramon Llull (thank you MICC!), visited the headquarters of Plasticiens Volants, where the magic happens, and the enchanting Moulin Jaune of Slava Polunin, clown, poet, philosopher and historian of Carnivale.
Along the way, we chased after processions and squeezed into crowds of strangers with an unapologetic glee. But the real gold wasn’t just in the performances; it was in the people. Over espresso cups, under festival tents, or amidst the lingering smoke of a street spectacle, I sat down with artists, producers, and directors who make the street their stage. These weren’t formal interviews; they were spontaneous conversations fueled by our shared passion and the occasional glass of wine. What follows is a patchwork of those voices, woven into the story of how public space becomes a space for connection, rebellion, and wonder.
I am profoundly grateful for the extraordinary welcome I received from MICC organization in Montreal, Ramon Llull Institute in Barcelona, every festival where we were welcomed by its directors and artists with open arms and often subsidized housing, waived conference fees, careful guidance and welcome by the organizers, and last but most important, my partner Thomas Donahower, who joined me as a true Sancho Panza. Big thank you also to Ruth Wikler and Louise Dodet for advising and connecting us in advance.
Following also are the highlights of shows I have experienced and which are available for touring in 2025-26. If you are a presenter, please feel free to use the links to the company promoters I have provided or feel free to reach out to me for more information, I am happy to help establish the first connection. Write to: unicycleproductions@gmail.com
La Gran Oui, FestArts Libourne, photo by Sonia Kozlova Clark
The contemporary “street arts” scene is multifaceted and diverse in the number of disciplines. But some shared traits can be identified to consider it one “art form”: spontaneous and open to public engagement; the performance is open if not welcoming to unpredictable or uncontrollable elements of city or nature’s life; the audience being an inextricable part of the creative context. Street Art Festivals’s curation and placement of the performances is as much an art as the creation itself.
The art of engaging in a public space some track to the practice of the shamans in caves and natural habitats of early humans, Socrates in an Athenian marketplace, pre-medieval Rabelaisian feasts and carnivals, the minstrels on medieval plazas or the many folk festivals around the world and an all continents inhabited by humans.
Street arts is also a powerful platform for radical social movements. From the agitprop performances of the Workers’ Theatre Movement in the 1930s to the guerrilla-style interventions of Bread and Puppet Theater during the Vietnam War, and student uprisings in Paris of May 1968, street theater has amplified voices of resistance in public spaces and gave rise to major festivals like Aurillac and Chalon, companies like Royal Deluxe, Generik Vapeur and Transe Express still thriving today. In Spain, the post-Franco era saw companies like Els Joglars and Fura dels Baus reclaim public squares as sites of artistic rebellion and political defiance.
“One thing is very important in our festival, and we want to have a very strong way of artistic expression. And it’s best done on the street than behind closed doors. WE need the freedom to create and talk about everything. Even if it’s uncomfortable. And it doesn’t matter. You have to.” Frederik Remy, Artistic Director, Aurillac Festival, France
Elephants Laugh, Aurillac, photo by Sonia Kozlova Clark
“The desire to go into the streets, the aesthetic “codes” of expression, especially in music and the promenade shows (spectacles) owe their modern language to the time following the years of repression. In Spain, Street Theater is a mixture of artistic and political expression for us. These shows are a demonstration or protest put in an artistic form.” added Anna Giribet Argilès, Artistic Director Fira Tàrrega. (stay tuned for the full interviews of my recent Festival tours).
In the words of producer, performer and now Artistic Director of the Kleines Festival in Hannover Germany, Casper De Vries “Street Theater is an art form. It took a while in Europe to have this art form recognized at all. It did not come out of nothing and all of a sudden it was there. It’s been a development of many many years. Next to Opera and theater they developed a kind of art outside the walls where artists can do things that are not possible inside, they play with water and fire, or large sets that would never fit into a theater. You can fly things in the air, have people hanging from a crane. It is limitless, so it is very interesting to explore for artists and the interesting thing is it free for the audience to join or not, if it is on the street, the artist has to make sure that there is a connection, otherwise the audience moves out immediately. It is a very honest way of connecting between artist and audience, but also of audience and audience. It is like a gathering of friends to enjoy each other and a piece of wonderful art.” (Sonia Kozlova Clark interview with Caspar at Kleines Festival July 28 2024)
“When we are doing the selection and planning, our goal is to use as many of the streets as we have access to throughout the city. The space is one of the ingredients to take into account when selecting the program of the festival. You have to establish a dialogue between the artist and the site. The experience of knowing the city gives us a lot of information about how the sites work, how the audience transitions between spaces, where the sun is at one time and the other time, how the light is, how audiences react or not react to who, which is the mood of the show.”Artistic Director Anna Giribet Argilès, Fira Tàrrega, from my interview on September 8 2024.
“In the sky, we craft dreams. Our art is a symphony of flight and color, where the boundaries of reality blur and imagination takes flight. We don’t just create performances; we sculpt the air itself. Imagine a landscape where the ordinary is transformed into the extraordinary, where giant inflatable creatures drift gracefully above, casting shadows of wonder on the ground below. Our art is not confined to the stage; it expands into the open sky, inviting everyone to look up and be amazed. Each of our creations is a testament to human ingenuity and creativity. We bring to life whimsical forms that soar and dance, engaging audiences in a shared experience that’s both surreal and enchanting. Our work turns public spaces into magical realms, where the familiar becomes fantastical and the sky is a canvas for our imagination. We celebrate the joy of being uplifted—both literally and metaphorically. We aim to spark a sense of wonder and delight, to remind people of the beauty and possibility that lie just above their heads. Our performances are not just events; they are celebrations of the human spirit and the boundless creativity that can transform our world.” Plasticiens Volants founder, Marc Mirales, artistic director Marc Etieve.
Plasticiens Volants @ Artpark, 2022, photo by Jordan Oscar, Artpark & Co
“We perform in public spaces, we perform in spaces that belong to no one, and to all at the same time. When you perform outdoors, we are obligated to collaborate with others. Like the cafe over there and the firemen and the city hall police for the circulation. Of course, with the festival and the security guard, there are many, many factors that remind me that I am one part of this society to make something together in the place which belongs to everyone, so for me it is also meaningful to organize something together. Just to make this performance. Because I know that just to make this performance we depend on many many people each time, many people that I have not even met. It is important for me to know that I belong here” Juhyung Lee, Galmae, C’est pas là, c’est par là | Galmae/갈매, a South Korean artist based in Marseille (Sonia Kozlova Clark interview at La Strada Festival, Graz, Austria, August 2 2024)
Photo by Jordan Oscar, Artpark & Co.
“Générik Vapeur, a French street theater company founded in 1983, is renowned for its rebellious, provocative and collaborative processions that transform urban spaces into stages of unity and sometimes ”joyous” outrage. In their show Bivouac, which traveled the world for 35 years, led by men and women painted their skin blue lead a the city in a march involving punk-rock music, barrels and giant steel puppets, they “rekindle the desire to run, to dodge, to test one’s reflexes, one’s ability to jump, to pivot. From this emerges the choreography of a collective ballet, unique to each audience, fragmented into countless actor-spectator duets.”
“The original idea was to stop the war. If we all paint our skins blue, we can see each other as the same. We work with problems of society. We speak about the current issues as the show evolves.” says Caty Avram, co-Founder of Generik Vapeur on our recent encounter at FestArts in Libourne, “when we build the pyramid with a “smelling powder”, we move and destroy it and the people in the area only hear a big explosion but also smell and taste the power. For me it is very important to make them feel this sudden event: “what happened”? To make it unpredictable. To question: Why are we here? When we worked with this show in Africa or Korea (you know Juhyung with Galmae – that is how we met him), it is incredible to see the new generation pick up Bivouac. “ says Pierre Berthelot, the co-founder of Generik Vapeur”
Bivouac250, Out There Festival 2018 © David Street
Caty Avram, Generik Vapeur, FestArts Libourne, 2024 photo by Sonia Kozlova Clark
The street theater audience is a special gang of all walks of life and class, equalized and socialized by the quest to discover something new, to laugh and feel together. We cannot be stopped by the 102 F heat, rain, performers invitations to take a risk, twisting our necks and squeezing into the tiniest of openings between strangers’ bodies, allowing a neighbor’s foot inches away from your cheek. It is a part of the experience to share this common space.
An experienced festival goer is skilled in ways to share the space with the others, tilting the head at most inopportune for the neck angles to the tips of one’s toes; brushing off the drops of the rain your glasses; filtering out the sounds of the street or just the opposite perhaps: inviting it all into the ultimate experience. The memory will later bring up the sounds, the smells, the smoke, the touch, the feeling on your skin.
It is the act of “public laughter”, the public voice, the sense of celebration that equalizes and acknowledges us. The artists are an inseparable part of us and we are the inseparable part of any act. “The biggest impact of our festival is in persistent emotion” said Frederic Remy, Artistic Director of Aurillac, the 37-year old festival which brought over 35,000 people per day (140K total) with over 600 acts and altogether 3,000 shows in 4 days. “It is not the tradition that brings people here, but contemporary artists who speak to them in a shared voice.”
If the theater world wants to find ultimate relevance, look no further than a well done street theater festival.
Piston Errant, FestArts Libourne, photo by Sonia Kozlova Clark
Mirage by Dyptik, La Strada, photo by Sonia Kozlova Clark
La Gran Oui, FestArts Libourne, photo by Sonia Kozlova Clark
“What is important is that we work together, it is a citizen’s culture. We do not just invite artists with finished projects, we create work with them.” Werner Schrempf, Artistic Director of La Strada, Graz, Austria, told me in a conversation. His festival runs in the middle of the summer for 9 days. The program presents up to 30 different projects by international artists from all over the world in our city of Graz. The festival has existed already for 27 years and is quite well known in the city. It is well received in these nine days we have up 120,000 people joining the city and the lives.”[Sonia Kozlova Clark interview, La Strada, Graz, August 2 2024]
Frederik Remy, Artistic Director, Aurillac, France, from my interview at Aurillac Festival in a separate conversation with me adds “The artist welcomes the audience, but the citizen welcomes the artist. And there is something like a big deal to be together, to have this value of hospitality. So everybody in this situation has to welcome you, and you have to welcome me. It has been almost 40 years of the festival in Aurillac and the love story here is between the citizen and the artists”.
[FestArts] is a very important part of the city and the whole population is involved.” says Tiphaine Gil, the Artistic Director of FestArts in Libourne: “there is beautiful history that is related to this “inhabitants” thanks to the founder Dominique Beyly, who created this “dream” some 20 years ago. … working closely with the volunteers who take a week off from their work at the permission of their employers to work at the festival. The town residents also host the artists they choose. Altogether this relationship makes for the soul of the festival. And then what thrills me is seeing the all visitors walking the streets, being a part of their experience. This is what makes all the work worthwhile.” Tiphaine Giry, Artistic Director of FestArts, Libourne, France (Sonia Kozlova Clark interview, at FestArts, August 2024)
“Street Theater is the most democratic form of art without economic barriers. It is the best introduction into the performing arts for a new audience. A lot of young people experience performance for the first time on the street squares. A lot of people bump into a dance piece or circus piece on the square by coincidence and are intrigued by the unexpected. And if they like it, they can go into the large theaters eventually. The performances themselves are an active dialogue between the artist and the audience. And it is fun. It has to be.” Anna Giribet Argilès, Artistic Director / Natàlia Lloreta Pané, Managing Director, Fira Tarrega, Spain, interview at Fira Tarrega.
The world of Street Theater is thriving in festivals around the world. From Heso Matsuri (the belly button in Hokkaido Japan) to Adelaide Fringe in Australia to Aurillac and many others in France, La Strada in Graz, Austria and SPOT in Lithuania, to the National Arts Festival in Makhanda, South Africa.
Photography by Sonia Kozlova Clark
Here is a glimpse into the mind-blowing statistics of the Street Theater Festival scene abroad:
Chalon dans la Rue (France) in 2023 attracted more than 200,000 visitors over five days, with around 1,000 performers across 150 performing troupes.
Avignon Festival (France) is one of the world’s largest arts festivals, drawing over 155,000 visitors. The IN festival features over 400 performances, while the OFF festival boasts over 1,500 different shows, involving thousands of artists.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe (Scotland) in 2023 recorded around 250,000 unique attendees, issuing more than 3 million tickets for over 3,500 different shows, with approximately 20,000 performers involved.
Adelaide Fringe Festival (Australia) is the largest arts festival in the Southern Hemisphere, with over 1,200 shows across more than 300 venues in 2023. The festival attracts around 6,000 performers and reached a record-breaking 1 million tickets sold. In 2023, the festival drew 45,000 visitors from interstate and international locations, generating 230,000 visitor bed nights.
Aurillac International Street Theatre Festival (France) attracts over 120,000 attendees across four days, featuring more than 600 performing companies.
Fest’Arts in Libourne (France) welcomes around 40,000 spectators annually, with around 100 artists and companies performing during the festival.
La Strada Graz (Austria) draws strong community participation with performances by about 200 artists from various international groups .
B-FIT in the Street! (Romania) saw over 65,000 attendees in 2023, with dozens of companies and around 250 performers engaging the public.
FiraTàrrega (Spain) in 2024 sold over 11,600 tickets for paid shows, with performances from more than 50 companies, including around 400 artists.
PASSAGE Festival (Denmark and Sweden) is Scandinavia’s largest street theater festival, featuring around 60 companies and over 300 artists, drawing thousands of visitors.
Oerol Festival (Netherlands) welcomes over 50,000 visitors annually, with about 100 performances and approximately 700 artists and creators involved each year.
Spraoi International Street Arts Festival (Ireland) attracts tens of thousands of visitors, with performances from more than 200 artists, both local and international.
Dublin Fringe Festival (Ireland) includes around 650 performances from over 500 artists across multiple genres, contributing significantly to Ireland’s performing arts landscape.
Seoul Street Arts Festival (South Korea) is the largest street arts festival in Korea, featuring more than 500 artists performing across various venues in Seoul.
Tokyo International Theatre Festival (Japan) includes performances from around 300 artists each year, combining traditional and contemporary performances.
Chale Wote Street Art Festival (Ghana) is a major African street art festival held annually in Accra, featuring hundreds of artists, musicians, and performers. The festival includes street theater, murals, interactive installations, and musical performances, with thousands of visitors attending each year.
So, then, why do we not see the same level of vibrancy and development or support in this sector in the US? I know, I know: the issues of control, the liabilities, the GL insurance, the rain being excluded from Force Majeure clauses, the challenge of making this engagement transactional (money to admission), the Actors’ equity rules, Department of Labor, Department of Buildings, Department of Transportation, the department of all departments. But still there are thousands of us all over the world who dare to join together, craning our necks, crowding on pavement under the sun or rain, clutching that beer or a parasol. Can we truly be that different?
To seek answers to this question that has been with me for over 20 years of professional practice, both creating, producing and presenting home-grown and international work, and presented an opportunity of a pause, in some ways one might argue due to this professional passion of mine, my partner, Thomas, and I undertook what some might call an epic and once-in-a-lifetime, bucket list, midlife trip under the circumstances that would be hard to replicate. On July 26th, my 51st birthday, we raised our champagne glasses on a flight Toronto – Frankfurt.
Six countries, 46 days, 450528 steps, 197 miles walked, over a thousand laughs extracted from this body, having seen over 100 shows, and engaged with organizations like the Union Fédérale d’Intervention des Structures Culturelles and Formation Supérieure d’Art en Espace Public, Institute Ramon Llull (thank you MICC!). I also visited the headquarters of Plasticiens Volants, where the magic happens, and the enchanting Moulin Jaune of Slava Polunin. I am profoundly grateful for the extraordinary welcome I received.
These are some of the highlights from:
Kleines Fest im Großen Garten in Hannover, Germany, led by Casper De Vries
La Strada in Graz, Austria, founded by AD Werner Schrempf
Bregenzer Festspiele in Austria and its glorious production of Der Freischütz
Fest’Arts in Libourne, France, under the humble direction of Tiphaine Giry
Aurillac in France, directed by Frederic Remy
Fira Tàrrega, Tàrrega, Spain, directed by Anna Giribet Argilès, Artistic Director and Natàlia Lloreta Pané, Managing Director
Manifesta, Barcelona, Spain
If you’re curious, let’s connect! Let’s keep the conversation going about how to ignite this spark in the U.S., where we still have much to gain from the social cohesion, cultural enrichment, accessibility, urban transformation, economic impact, educational opportunities, and creative freedom that this unique and relevant art form brings to our communities.
Talk to me if you’re looking to develop tours or programs in public spaces—my portfolio has grown exponentially! Let’s discuss how to make this art form sustainable within your organization. Share with me what challenges you face in bringing or developing more of this work at your venue.
Cheers to all my U.S. colleagues—warriors in the support of outdoor festivals and performances in public spaces!
Yours truly,
Sonia Kozlova Clark
Unicycle Productions LLC
October 2024
Photography by Sonia Kozlova Clark