LEME is an innovative festival that explores the new languages of contemporary circus and artistic creation for unconventional spaces in search of different creative approaches in confrontation with experimentation. A transfiguration of the usual look of the cultural space of our times, opening doors to new artistic perspectives, focusing on multidisciplinarity and difference, making the festival a space of collective enlivening for all ages. Inspired by a desire to create a new context, focused on the contact between Portuguese creators and the international critical mass, LEME responds to the aspirations of a rapidly evolving sector, representing a space of opportunity for Portuguese contemporary artistic creation in these fields, while promoting the confrontation with international trends.

With a temporally decentralized festival and from a programming that has the circus as its base language, LEME outlines a broader project that aims to leave ballast far beyond the four days of the festival.

The festival operates in six distinct domains that cross its vision of programming and broaden its spectrum of action to the context of audience development. Ideas such as internationalization, novelty (national premieres), capture of family audiences, promotion of meetings for specialized audiences and discovery of new territory are concepts that describe the guiding thread of the project that aims to create references and gain new audiences. In addition, it aims to engage new contexts, broaden artistic contact to new languages, transform the community's view of the circus, move beyond the classic image and transport the audience to new realities or new contexts, create opportunities for new generations to contact, experience and observe distinct international and disruptive artistic visions.

Between the desire to bring the local community closer to new contemporary artistic practices and, simultaneously, taking advantage of the new national look at the circus, comes LEME. Portugal is a sunny country with conditions for the practice and programming of street arts. With the new tourist flows there is a national reinforcement for mass mobilizing events and representative of the various territories. However, the creation, production and programming of street and circus arts in Portugal, despite some good examples, is still very punctual. Therefore, the contemporary circus and street arts are an area where supply and demand are unbalanced where demand is much higher than supply. It is in this context of opportunity that Leme emerges. A festival that aims to create references, support training, create space for thought and networks.

Ílhavo, through its cultural project, 23 Milhas, has a network of equipment and events that gives it a privileged place to create this winter festival that breaks, among other things, the seasonality of circus events. Without losing scale and dynamics , LEME benefits from several excellent equipment to accommodate artists and the public.

Based on a strategic objective of positioning the festival as a national and international reference, LEME's central programming axis highlights a group of companies and shows from the international circuit in its first presentation in Portugal. The artistic program of the 2019 edition of LEME is in the final stages of development, with the inclusion of 9 national premieres, distributed over the 4 days of the festival's agenda.

LEME challenges Portuguese creators to develop new artistic projects, viewing the festival as a space for experimentation and thought. In contrast to the international reference programming, two Portuguese companies are annually challenged to develop new works addressing the dynamics of the contemporary circus and the challenges of creating in unconventional spaces.

Parallel to the activities of creation and programming, LEME develops different mediation actions involving different audiences (from the school audience in laboratory activities, through the community in residency activities, young people and emerging artists in debate and conversation actions and the general public through open trials).

In an embryonic process, the festival program includes training sessions with different audiences and objectives. Young people from the region are invited to transform their views of the contemporary movement in the circus context, or professionals from other areas are challenged to understand dynamics and languages, as well as innovations in scenic development.

The days of the festival yearn to become a meeting point for the circus sector in Portugal, around a common space, open to debate and inviting national and international professionals to an environment of informal knowledge and sharing. In 2019, the international CIRCUS FORUM takes shape, in an intense day of debate and information, complementary to the activities of artistic programming.

Catching its position of preferential meeting space for the national artistic community, in this area, LEME aims, since the first edition, to face an international positioning, open to debate and to the new, going beyond the mere involvement of international artists in official programming, with their participation in debates and conversations capable of enhancing critical thinking and bringing new challenges for the sector in Portugal. Every year, Ílhavo specialists in various areas visit the debate and training program. On the other hand, the active presence in international professional networks allows the festival to create bonds and peer confidence, developing a larger reference space on a larger scale.

LEME integrates Ílhavo and the region in the international circuit of the contemporary circus, stimulating the involvement of new audiences in the city. Portugal, through the integration in this network, places itself in a privileged place in the sector, ensured by LEME's ambitious project for the creation and programming of contemporary circus in unconventional spaces.

From our partners some already include a name with influence on the contemporary circus at international level: