The Labyrinth
An exploratory project where circus arts meet visual arts
Un projet exploratoire où l’art du cirque rencontre l’art plastique
Fabian Krestel transforme la jonglerie en outil pictural, traduisant l’éphémère du mouvement en traces visuelles tangibles. Un labyrinth entre cirque et arts plastiques.
Writing with a tree branch balanced on paper, drawing while juggling balls dipped in ink, throwing pieces of charcoal onto a canvas to create a shape… Fabian Krestel explores new and playful ways of translating movement into visual form, using juggling as a tool for pictorial creation. Through the precision of his ambidextrous movements and the geometry of the lines and dots he uses, he invents an astonishing artistic grammar that seeks a path between process and product. The audience witnesses—and even participates in—the marriage of a circus discipline with a drawing technique. The patterns created by juggling then exist as works in their own right. Between performance and exhibition, a captivating “work in progress.”
The Labyrinth is a research project that explores the relationship between
process and product. Fabian Krestel explores playful methods for translating movement patterns into visual traces, all within structured environments that leave room for a touch of
randomness. This exploration involves studying the physical requirements associated with movement, with the aim of discovering playful forms that generate both visual and experiential results, thus creating traces and events. This abstract approach, comparable to juggling, captures the essence of movement, including ambidexterity, precision, geometries, compositions, patterns, and variations.
Solo, Trio, installation, …
The Labyrinth can be experienced in various ways.
Teaser Trio
Download
Press kit
Technical specifications
HD photos
crédits
Concept and artistic direction : Fabian Krestel
Potential performers : Fabian Krestel, Carla Kühne, Keivin Benavides Hidalgo, Daniele Ippolito, Gregor Kiock, Wing Leung Pun, Isabelle du Bois, Marco Giongrandi.
Music and sound : Marco Giongrandi
Set design : Anna Terrien
Production : Plusieurs
Co-production : Halles de Schaerbeek, le Brass, Perplex, Latitude 50, Mira Miro, Cirklabo, Cement festival
Support : Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Cirqueon, Panama Pictures, Forecast, La Roseraie, Centre culturel Wolubilis, ten Weyngaert, le Marni, Archipel 19, UP – Circus & Performing Arts
Special thanks : Carla Maria Kühne, Anna Krestel, David Paycha, Pia Meuthen
Teasers : Bruno Pierucci / TViP Studios
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THE LABYRINTH__29.08.2026_→_FESTIVAL DAPERTUT__TRUN 🇨🇭
THE LABYRINTH__30.08.2026_→_FESTIVAL DAPERTUT__TRUN 🇨🇭
THE LABYRINTH
29.08.2026_→_TRUN 🇨🇭
FESTIVAL DAPERTUT__
THE LABYRINTH
30.08.2026_→_TRUN 🇨🇭
FESTIVAL DAPERTUT__
Biography
Born in Munich in 1987, Fabian Krestel is an interdisciplinary artist now based in Brussels. His work bridges contemporary circus, choreography, and visual arts. In 2013, he graduated with honors from ESAC, the Brussels School of Circus Arts. During his studies, he specialized in two structurally different disciplines: Chinese pole and juggling.
Since 2014, his work has incorporated dance and acrobatics, leading him to collaborate with artists such as Kitt Johnson (Denmark), Claudio Stellato (Belgium and the Netherlands), Moni Wespi (Switzerland), and the Panama Pictures company (the Netherlands).
After several years as a performer, Fabian Krestel began work on his first creation, The Labyrinth, in 2020. This project is defined as an exploration of the relationship between process and product. It is an interdisciplinary essay, a hybrid between performance, installation, visual art, theater, dance, and music. The central innovation of The Labyrinth is the abstraction of juggling in order to generate visual traces (lines, dots, and patterns) from ephemeral movements, thus connecting the performing arts with the visual arts.
Fabian Krestel was selected for the Forecast program under the mentorship of Yuya Tsukahara, in the theme “Post Punk Performance.” Supported and co-produced by several European institutions, including Les Halles de Schaerbeek, BRASS, Latitude 50, Perplex, Mira Miro, and Cirklabo, The Labyrinth premiered at the Festival des Arts de la Rue de Huy in April 2024 and has since been programmed at festivals and theater seasons: HP24 at Les Halles de Schaerbeek at BRASS, Festival Cement, Festival Smells like Circus (2026), Festival Scenar!o (2026), at Marni, etc.
Associate Artist
Since 2024, Fabian Krestel has been an associate artist at Plusieurs, an agile service structure dedicated to undisciplined and multidisciplinary creative projects. This structure is currently mainly active in Belgium and is headed by Laurent Pirotte. Its main objective is to act as a space for interstices by relieving artists of administrative, financial, and operational constraints, in order to give them back time and creative freedom.
Plusieurs develops solid, long-term support for its associate artists by pooling essential skills such as production management, administrative management, grant research, HR monitoring, and distribution and communication.
Associate artists, including Fabian Krestel (since 2024), Moni Wespi (since 2021), and François de Saint-Georges (since 2019), benefit from this ecosystem to give their work the necessary scope.