Counterpublic Convening: CIRCUS OF LIFE
October 24-26, 2025, St. Louis, MO
The inaugural Counterpublic Convening, is a free weekend festival bringing together leading artists, thinkers, and advocates to imagine new ways of being in the world together. Organized by New York-based writer and curator Laura Raicovich, alongside Ringleaders Kenneth Bailey, Galen Gritts, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, and Jeanne van Heeswijk, CIRCUS OF LIFE cultivates connections and shared experiences during a time when locating what we hold in common is urgent and necessary. Hosted at the Big Top, an iconic circus tent in the Grand Center Arts District, the program expands imaginations and engages participants through joy, delight, and creative expression.
Inspired by the richness of circus entertainment and artists’ ability to expand society’s imagination, CIRCUS OF LIFE will bring a variety of such experiences to the public. Artists, advocates, and cultural leaders will present ideas and performances, share conversations, pose questions, and host booths of fun and exchange for all to make meaning together. Organized in five distinct Acts, each with its own theme, the Big Top will host a combination of live performance, song, discussion, and a variety of entertainment and spectacle. Surrounding the Big Top will be booths and tables by artists and collaborators presenting activities and games, alongside mystical and educational experiences. Workshops will unfold over the course of the weekend, offering ways to engage in-depth in hands-on activities and discussions.
Learn to juggle, listen to stories of migration, watch performance with enormous puppets, discuss how we might live better together today, listen to songs of freedom and love, cast spells, be together.
Enlivening the inherent relationship between art and daily life, CIRCUS OF LIFE is an adventure of your choosing, where pleasure meets rowdiness, joy meets skepticism, indulgence meets experimentation.
All are welcome.