Happy to be Here!

Created & Performed by Jan Damm. Compulsive vaudevillian and international romantic Hans Lieberdich wants to bring curiosity and spontaneity back to the circus, and his own life.

Pushing the limits of acrobatics, manipulation, and teutonic comedy, Hans digs deep while balancing atop precarious objects and extended metaphors. Hans had to travel from his native Germany to a new continent, to a land that shared his absurd, possibly fatal, level of optimism to create a new variety arts.

Along the way, he will ask: What are the theatrical dimensions of physical risk? How does curiosity react with danger? And what happens when you lose the plot at the height of the Big Top? After a lifetime spent honing his craft and performing with some of the most famous circuses around the world, Hans now explores new acrobatic props of his own design, to try to find a spark of creativity amidst the sparkle of showbiz.

The results are by turns absurd and poetic, and surprisingly human. Expect thrills, laughs, pathos, and hopefully you, too, can say you’re ‘Happy to Be Here!’