Contemporary Circus at Salzburg’s Winterfest

Salzburg Winter Festival December 2025 celebrates Contemporary Circus with acrobatics, juggling, music and Machine de Cirque - fun from Canada, France & Austria.

Why not try combating the circus that descends around this time every year with a homeopathic-style approach and head straight to Salzburg for Winterfest, the festival of Nouveau Cirque?

Circus companies from France, Canada & Austria are presenting their latest creations at the Winterfest 2025.

After the great success of “The Elephant in the Room” at winterfest 2015, the audience favourites Cirque Le Roux is back in Salzburg for its anniversary year. The French company is considered the inventor and master of the so-called Cinema Circus. With impressive cinematic aesthetics and virtuoso artistry, the artists tell visually stunning and emotional stories and constantly redefine contemporary circus. Their new masterpiece “Entre Chiens et Louves” (Between Dogs and Wolves) reveals the stories of three people living in different eras: 1870, 1960 and 2022. Along their lives, they take the audience on a fascinating journey through time to the present day. In a unique blend of circus and cinema, the eight artists combine comedy, dance and breathtaking acrobatics to celebrate a solidary and humane society.

The tables are set, the glasses are filled. La Faux Populaire invites you to a cabaret show in their own circus tent. The audience takes their seats at small tables around the circular stage in the world of Julien and Juliette. Close to the audience, in front of, around, and even above the visitors, the two artists explore life as a couple with talent and humor. In funny acts combining juggling, tightrope walking, acrobatics, and knife throwing, this comical pair highlights the constant duality of life in relationships. "Le Cabaret Renversé" is an encounter between two extraordinary artists and the audience. An encounter that touches and makes you laugh at the same time – an evening full of joie de vivre, humor, and artistic brilliance.

What a circus! From the discovery of fire to the first steps on the moon, Akoreacro takes the audience on an entertaining journey through the history of our species. The collective of crazy adventurers and dreamers tirelessly challenges itself and the limits of what is possible. True to the motto “higher, faster, further,” the imaginative artists use humor and spectacular acrobatics to poke fun at our relationship with progress as well as our silent dependence on technology, which has long since set the pace. "Ostinato" is a circus piece like an evolutionary short circuit, a flight through time – not with a raised index finger, but with hands on the trapeze, feet above the ground, and hearts in the air. Will these crazy dreamers really reach the moon? We don’t know. But one thing is certain: you will see stars!

Cirque Éloize brings a visionary new creation to Salzburg that combines urban circus and digital art in a completely new way. The stars from Montréal combine breakdancing, trampoline, aerial acrobatics, trial biking, Cyr Wheel, and more in a visually captivating world where the boundaries between reality and digital art dissolve. In doing so, they are opening a new chapter in Cirque Nouveau – explosive, innovative and in tune with the times. At the heart of the new show is a journey through a futuristic city, through body images, light landscapes and digital spaces. The artists tell stories of self-discovery, change and the desire to connect with oneself, with others and with a world in transition. What Cirque Éloize presents here is more than just circus: it is an impressive overall experience, a technologically sophisticated spectacle in which street art and acrobatics merge.

This humorous spectacle is no ordinary feast. Food invites the audience into an amusing and sometimes bizarre world of consumption. Fueled by the artists’ own appetite for more. What begins as the simple act of eating gradually transforms into a crazy, almost mechanical ritual. We observe how the boundaries between desire and necessity become blurred and something grotesque, overwhelming, and disturbingly hypnotic emerges. Through acrobatics and object manipulation, these witty circus artists create a lively body language that questions not only their own but perhaps even our collective consumption habits—habits that have been shaped by the silent pressure of commercial persuasion.

The festival runs until January 6, but with one of the performances already sold out until the festival’s end, don’t forget to book ahead.

Contemporary Circus at Salzburg’s Winterfest

Where to stay?

Arthotel Blaue Gans should be your first choice on any stop through Salzburg, but especially now during the Winterfestseason. From now until the end of December, their special packages has you covered for everything you need, complete with the perfect location for a romantic 15-minute walk through the historic heart of Salzburg between the hotel and the Volksgarten, where Winterfest takes place.