Bart Rousseau on ZLOTY
During Cultura Nova, our bloggers experience the festival first-hand. Not as critics, but as curious visitors trying to capture what a performance evokes.
For his first blog of this edition, Bart Rousseau visited Zloty on the Festival Square. A performance featuring clowning, humour and an unexpectedly personal layer.
Read about his experience below.
The first of this year
In the car, on my way to the first performance of Cultura Nova Edition 2026, I reflect on everything I’ve seen and experienced over all these years at Cultura Nova.
A performance featuring texts by the late actor Jeroen Willems, generated by (a precursor to) AI and printed on old dot-matrix printers. A sound performance based on air and bamboo pipes. Grand spectacles and very small, intimate performances. Such as that of a vulnerable migrant recounting stories of his late father.
In surprising venues or in places that sometimes gave the performance an unexpected extra dimension.
And over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of writing about all those dozens of performances for the Cultura Nova website.
To explain, not to judge. After all, I’m not a critic.
Sadly, the biggest fan of my writing is no longer with us. She passed away last month. I’m going to miss her even more today. Because she understood better than anyone what I meant in my writing. She read between the lines to grasp exactly what I thought of the performance. I could literally read and write with her.
It’s Saturday evening and, having arrived at the festival square, I take a brief stroll around. It’s pleasantly busy, despite the slightly less than ideal weather. And people are already queuing up to see the performance *Zloty*.
Ladies and gentlemen: The Circus is in town!
Even the 10.30 pm show is sold out. That’s a sign that this is a performance with a bit of an edge. And so it proves. Out in the open air, yet beneath the protective canopies of the circus tent, clown Zloty creates a warm and humorous atmosphere. With his broken-down lorry as the shining centrepiece.
And in this performance by the Spanish artist Pau Palaus, Clown Zloty demonstrates exactly why clowns have been part of the circus for centuries. Love, trust, attention, room to fall and the freedom to discover who you are. It’s just like bringing up a child. My biggest fan has done exactly the same for me throughout her life.
Thank you, Zloty, for this lovely memory… The memory of my biggest fan.
Bart Rousseau
About Bart Roussau
Bart Roussau has been attending the diverse Cultura Nova festival for many years and is constantly surprised by the creativity, energy and unexpected encounters that the programme offers.
This year, through his blogs, he’ll take you along on his personal journey: from impressive performances to intimate moments that you can only experience at Cultura Nova.