Photographer Fiorella Baldisserri is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay. From the project ‘A-ROUND STAGE | Circus Paniko’. To see Fiorella’s body of work, click on any image.

The shadow of the show. Poking around the circus, the show, can be an infinite journey as the points that make up a circumference are infinite. Around the wings there is a whole dressing room, a wardrobe, an alternation of sets. A dynamic balance, very tidy and chaotic at the same time, punctuated by blades of light and shadow, which serves the show by creating its own private alter ego.

“Around the scenes” the artists show themselves without make-up, sweaty, serious and laughing, smoking while waiting for the change of clothes or scene, you can breathe a crazy time, at times urgent and very fast, at other times sighed and slow, the pauses of a piece of music, the dead times of a dance, the circus stage machine is minute, the spaces and the contrasts are minutes.

Circo Paniko is one of the first and most numerous Contemporary Circus companies born in Italy in 2009. About thirty free artists and thinkers. It blends circus techniques, theater, dance, illusionism. live music, admission to the show is free while the exit is free and aware, its value is decided by each individual spectator.

More than a company, it defines itself as a collective with a horizontal internal structure, without managers or hierarchies, it is based on discussion and shared decision.

It is a light, human, almost “breathable” engine, a very delicate origami that comes from a very strong passion, from a rotating balance between fatigue and pleasure, play and seriousness, dream and reality, a dualism that chasing each other creates a circle.