Insomnia

Insomnia is an upcoming contemporary circus solo by aerialist Jakob Jacobsson assisted by light designers Nico de Rooij and Teo Lanerva. The solo is being developed as an ongoing research project into the relationship between circus and light design, and is set to premiere in 2026. The piece blends the light installation with aerial rope as a way to question the way we use light in performances, and then utilises this interdisciplinary cross-over as a starting point to investigate our relation to time, and how subjective it can be.

The performance creates an intimate atmosphere where the audience is invited to completely embrace the sense of losing track of time, and to reflect on their own relationship to time and how it affects them, and how they can affect it. The theme is (almost) universally relatable since, after all, we all know the feeling of running out of time, or feeling like something taking “forever”.

Jakob Jacobsson is a Swedish-born, Netherlands-based, aerial rope artist. He works both collectively and solo as a circus performer, rigger and artist. He spends his time in his two companies, The Nordic Council and Revue Regret, or in different circus-adjacent pursuits. He recently completed the pioneering artistic research program at ICCAR (international circus centre for artistic research) and he is selected for the New Horizons Leadership Program (operated by the Baltic Nordic Circus Network). He enjoys Tom Waits, coffee and playing the accordion in his spare time.