Directed by Bence Vági, our Arts Director, the show has been performed 300 times in 13 countries and seen by over 100,000 people across Europe since its debut in 2018.

Combining contemporary dance, theatre and circus arts, the cirque danse production has been a professional and audience success at numerous international festivals and prestigious theatres, including the Edinburgh Fringe, where it was voted the best of 4200 programmes by critics. The production, which has been the subject of a documentary by ARTE, the world’s leading arts TV channel, will be staged for the last time abroad on 26 April as part of the St George’s Day cultural event series in Sfântu Gheorghe, and will then be performed in Hungary at the Müpa Festival Theatre until 4 June.

My Land had its international premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2018, where it was an immediate hit, described by top critics as a “masterpiece” and “a brilliant work of art with amazing spectacle”, and quickly topped the festival’s charts. In the end, the critics voted My Land the best production of the entire Edinburgh International Festival. It was here that the term “cirque danse” was first coined to refer to the genre of the performance, and has since been used worldwide to describe the genre created by Recirquel, which combines dance and contemporary circus.

One of the special features of My Land is that the production features only foreign artists: Bence Vági invited seven internationally renowned Ukrainian artists and created the production based on their personal stories. Exploring the roots of humanity, the performance focuses on the eternal relationship between man and the homeland. Throughout the performance, the artists rise from a stage covered in earth, putting their relationship with their homeland in focus. The musical world of My Land evokes the roots of the participating artists: the Ukrainian folk music motifs featured were explored by the Fonogram award-winning composer and folk music collector Miklós Both.

This is why the production dramatically became a reality last year when Russia attacked Ukraine. The performers were on tour in France when the news of the outbreak of war arrived, despite the news they continued to perform, and then took the Ukrainian national flag on stage every night. Their story inspired the German filmmaker Ilka Franzmann, who recommended Recirquel and the Ukrainian artists to the European cultural television channel ARTE, who immediately bought the film idea.

The creators filmed with the artists for several months to build on the basis of My Land, while exploring the artists’ days of doubt through their personal stories. Is my Land – My Land? Ukrainian artists between art and war was screened last July. It was the first time that ARTE made a feature-length documentary about a Hungarian cultural production.