Taking a walk on the wild side with Tilde Björfors

This conversation with Tilde Björfors was full of love for the language that is her own - contemporary circus. Tilde is one of the leading figures in contemporary circus and a pioneer of this art genre in Sweden. She has spent more than three decades expanding the boundaries of circus, bringing it to unexpected places or simply - everywhere. A director, educator, the first professor of contemporary circus in Sweden and the founder of Cirkus Cirkör, Tilde Björfors has been the main figure in building circus education system, performing research and intertwining circus with other fields.

During this year’s Cirkuliacija Festival in Lithuania, Tilde Björfors joins the Professional Days panel where she will share her passion for circus in a seminar “Tracing Nordic Circus Trajectories”. In this conversation below, we travelled back in time to the first encounters that Tilde had with contemporary circus, its academic establishment, and constant pushing of boundaries for growing and daring more.

Agnė Sadauskaitė: One trip to Paris back in the 1990s marked the start of a significant period in your life. There you encountered a new wave of circus and never looked back. What was so captivating the first time you saw it?

Tilde Björfors:There were two things. The first was when I sawArchaos, one of the first contemporary circuses. They were flying, running on the walls - there were no boundaries. It was a big show, full of action and rock and roll, but it also had beautiful, poetic moments. That mix of the wild and the poetic, of different art forms, really blew me away. At that time, I was working in the theatre field, and this contemporary circus was something I couldn’t even describe because I had never seen anything like it before.

This feeling stayed with me, that here, everything was possible, and that the artists and creators were fearless, dared to take risks, both artistically and physically. It was inspiring to see people who weren’t afraid of anything. I was in my early 20ies andI wanted to feel the same way.

Second thing is that later in Paris, I got the chance to live closer to some circus artists, which was very interesting. I discovered that they were just like you and me, the only difference being that they had gone to circus school. I had imagined that circus was something you were born into, that circus people lived completely different lives, and that outsiders could never join. I saw professional artists practicing in the same space as beginners like me, and even classes of children coming in. It was a mix of professionals, stars, beginners and even kids all in the same space. You would never see something like that in Sweden, where everything is very organized and you always train with the same group. This gave me a new perspective.

Every show had a huge impact on me. I noticed that audiences left the shows deeply moved and feeling inspired to dare to take risks themselves. I thought to myself, this is such a powerful art form.My wish was to bring this to Sweden, to make it my artistic language and to share the idea that everything is possible, that you should dare to take steps, even small ones.

AS: It was a life-changing experience for you - performances pushing boundaries. What still amazes you about the circus today?

TB:I’ve been in the arts for so many years, put so much time into it that the first years of doing the circus was nonstop work. Then I began to wonder: why am I putting so much energy into people who hang from silks or stick forks up their noses? What’s the purpose? How does this change the world?

That’s when I started interviewing artists from different disciplines about the essence of circus. Through that, I rediscovered why the circus feels like my language and why I want to share it with the world. For me, the core of life is growth: growth in love, in mind, in spirit. Circus is a physical art form where you explore your possibilities, your balance, your relationships, your risks. And to grow, you must take risks. Circus is all about turning risk into possibility.

AS: You mentioned your research on circus. You’re the first professor of contemporary circus in Sweden. Besides that, you’ve designed circus schools, created educational programs, and encouraged interdisciplinary research. Why was it important to establish an academic framework for contemporary circus?

TB:I still sometimes doubt if it was the right path. After returning from Paris, my dream was to build something similar in Sweden - back then France even had a union for circus artists. One of the first things I did was start creating performances and a post-secondary education for circus artists. We had a circus gymnasium for students aged 16–18, but after graduating, they would go to France or Canada and never come back, because Sweden had no infrastructure for contemporary circuses. So, in 1997, we launched the first post-gymnasium program, which in 2005 became an official university program. Now we even have master’s and PhD programs.

AS: You said you’re still unsure whether this was the right way. Why is that?

TB:Circus is a physical art form. It comes from the body and from breaking boundaries. We were the last art form to become institutionalized. Now I can see that some aspects of the university system don’t always suit us. Still, I think it’s valuable that we now have circus thinkers and circus theorists. I’m not against the academic path, but I want to emphasize that it’s not the only way. Circus also carries its own knowledge through freedom, intuition, creativity and we must value that just as much.

AS: You brought the circus not only into academia but also into many different spaces. Where has the circus been performed under your direction?

TB:Everywhere. In the past, there was only traditional circus, but we wanted to show circus as a form of artistic expression and collaborate with other fields. We didn’t have our own stage, so we worked with others. We brought the circus to the Royal Dramatic Theatre, where we did a theatre-circus version of Romeo and Juliet. That was an important milestone. Later, we performed in opera houses, schools, gymnastic halls, and even churches. I was also bringing circus into other fields as I was interested in growth and collaboration. I’ve done research projects with experts in neurology, brain science, and even economics.

AS: Let’s jump to our festival. This year at Cirkuliacija, you’ll host a seminar focusing on Nordic circus. How would you describe contemporary Nordic circus, and what distinguishes it from other countries?

TB:In the beginning, around 15 years ago, you could see a Nordic style clearer. In Sweden, our mission when starting the school was to give artists the freedom to go in different directions and form their own companies. There was a certain wildness in our approach, especially in Finland. But now, our students come from all over the world, and our Swedish university program has changed. It’s become more disciplined and structured-more like a traditional circus school.

AS: I love your phrase, “Circus is all about taking a risk and turning that risk into possibility.” Could this be applied to other areas, let's say, politics, education?

TB:Even now, 30 years later, I still use circus metaphors in my daily life. The world can sometimes make it hard to believe that everything is possible, but what I love about the circus is that it isn’t fake. You have to train, collaborate, take care of your mental and physical health, and invest time. When you look at the crises in the world, if you scratch the surface, it all comes down to fear. You don’t need to start wars if you’re not afraid. You don’t need to fake power if you’re not afraid of losing control. Working in a circus is, in a way, constantly working with your fears. I learned that if you want to do something impossible, you have to focus on what is possible, not on the risk. If the risk feels too big, break it down into smaller steps. Right now, in the world, we focus so much on risks that even the possible starts to feel impossible. We are closing boundaries and putting more control, more locks, more fear.

If you ask circus artists what makes circus special, most of them will say it’s the risk. But if you ask how they personally deal with it, none wants to answer that. You can’t focus on the risk; you must focus on the possibility. Every accident I’ve witnessed has happened when an artist was unsure, even for a split second. I think this idea can apply to society as a whole.

AS: Circus also requires discipline, but playfulness, creativity, and innovation seem central to you. Where do you find joy in your life?

TB:It goes back to what we talked about earlier - the wish to grow. When you create, you walk where you haven’t walked before. You learn, explore, and discover new things and that’s the essence of circus for me. That’s what makes me happy: to create and to do it with others. When I bring my ideas and visions, and others bring theirs, something new emerges. The more I bring that into my work, the more deeply the audience connects. When you play it safe, the audience might say it’s beautiful, but you don’t touch them the way I was touched in Paris, all those years ago.