European Youth Circus
Every two years, up-and-coming European artists come together in Wiesbaden for a fantastic festival: the European Youth Circus - a real highlight in Wiesbaden's cultural calendar.
Every two years, the European Youth Circus in Wiesbaden creates a new total work of art consisting of acrobatics, talent, music and show elements in a Chapiteau in the heart of the city.
Here, European artists aged between 12 and 25 compete in friendly encounters in several competitions. They meet each other without emphasizing national, cultural and linguistic boundaries and thus become role models for peaceful cooperation in the European community.
The next European Youth Circus will take place from October 22 to 25, 2026.
Applications are possible from January 2026.
Review 2024
The winners of the European Youth Circus were presented in a three-hour gala show on Saturday, November 2, 2024. The young artists demonstrated their skills to the jury and the audience in four competition shows. The award winners were finally chosen based on their votes using a points system.
The jury consisted of the two former winners of the festival Michael Ferreri (juggler from Spain) and Larissa Kastein (Director of Flic Flac X-mas Nuremberg), Francesco Mocellin (President of the Society of Italian Circus Friends), Johnny Klinke (Director of the Tigerpalast-Varieté Frankfurt) Kristian Kristof (artist and casting director of the Hungarian production "Recirquel") and Nicholas Boivin-Gravel, for the first time a representative of Cirque du Soleil, for whom he works as a talent scout.
Winners of the 2024 prize
In the age group up to 17 years, the Golden Festival Prize was awarded to Stela StankeviČiuté from Lithuania. She wowed the jury and audience with her performance of "Here comes the river" on the Cyr Wheel. Stela also received an engagement award at Flic Flac Nuremberg. Silver went to the "Duo Hide" with their breathtaking partner acrobatics, in which 17-year-old Daria Naumeiko and her partner Mariana Punchak, who celebrated her 14th birthday during the festival in Wiesbaden, wowed the audience with precise throws and catches. Viktoria Voitko from the Ukraine took bronze. The 14-year-old artist demonstrated balancing skills at the highest levels of difficulty and was therefore also awarded the Cirque du Soleil prize for special circus quality and the Wiesbaden Church Prize.
Engagement prizes were awarded to Israeli Yahav Adar (Cyr Wheel), who will soon be performing at Cirque Imagine in France, while juggler Aron Zsàlek from Hungary won the Tigerpalast Frankfurt prize. There were further special prizes for "Bence & Zoe" from Hungary on the straps (Prize of Circus Variety and Artists' Friends Switzerland), Justin Philadelphia from Germany on the flying pole (Society of Circus Friends Germany), Claudia Rapolli (Czech Republic, tightrope) received the Prize of the Society of Circus Friends Italy and Maria Asplund from Sweden on the vertical rope (Prize of Recirquel Hungary).
Two further special prizes remained in Germany: Amelie Kamps (straps) received the prize of the Association of German Variety Theatres and hula hoop artist Alexandra Tikhonovich was awarded the prize of Neues Theater Höchst.
In the older age group (18 to 25 years), there was a jury vote very close to the maximum number of points: Vladyslava Naraieva (19 years) from Ukraine won the Golden Festival Prize with her unique handstand equilibristics combined with hula hoop elements. She had already won this prize at the European Youth Circus in Wiesbaden in 2018, albeit in the younger age category at the time. Silver went to the Portuguese "Hillary", who let her two diabolo cones glide through the air at high speed and with many spins. This delighted the audience so much that they also won the "Prize of the Hearts", which is determined by the audience's vote using voting cards and was presented by Lord Mayor Gert-Uwe Mende. Bronze was awarded to the Hungarian duo "The Anna's" on the flying pole.
The "Children's Jury Prize" was awarded for the first time. The five-member panel, aged between 11 and 13, chose the "Duo Fusion" with their LED juggling.
Circus is intangible cultural heritage
Circus was added to the nationwide list of intangible cultural assets as an independent form of performing art in 2023. This was announced to the network of German circus associations by Professor Dr. Christoph Wulf, Chairman of the Expert Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage at the German UNESCO Commission. The state capital of Wiesbaden also played a small part in this - during the European Youth Circus 2018, there was a preparatory meeting at which the successful examples of Hungary, the Netherlands and Finland were presented and it was then discussed how to proceed and formulate the application in Germany in order to achieve recognition of the circus as an intangible cultural asset.