circusnext has its ten finalists for 2026, and picks four laureates in September.

circusnext has named the ten finalist projects for its 2026 cycle. The list runs across Europe: T.O.A from Croatia with Corvus obscura, Cie Suspendu in France with AMOW, Opus Company in Finland with The Curse of Empathy, Aurora Dini in France with Sola, and Carlos Landaeta Meneses in Belgium with Blood Flow Reading Club.

The other five are L'Art Nak in France with Don Baltha, Fenja Barteldres in Germany with Tyr Auf!, La Norma in France with SCANDALE, Verena Schneider in Austria with Holding onto everything I've got, and Daniel Kvašňovský in France with Les choix tremblants / cirkus ne_vkus.

Each finalist receives a €3,000 co-production grant. The four laureates, selected from those ten in September, receive €5,000 each. Finalists also get a residency or a work-in-progress presentation abroad at a Platform member venue.

The four laureates then present a fragment of their work in progress at Révélations circusnext, on 23 and 24 September at 19:30, at the Maison des Arts de Créteil. Tickets are open through the venue.

One thing the list shows on its own: five of the ten finalists are based in France, and four of those five are led by artists who came from somewhere else. The projects were picked before anyone knew which four would win, so the finalist list is a wider read on what the jury is looking at than the result will be.