The Company
The Marseille company Zania was born from a meeting between Gioia Zanaboni and Anja Eberhart.
It takes its name from Zanni, a picturesque and mischievous character of the tradition of commedia dell’arte. The company’s work is based on the desire to explore the theater in the circus and the circus in the theater, and to experiment with the possibilities of contemporary circus while maintaining the links with performing arts traditions.
The company seeks to create a new dramatic language for the circus to allow for multiple levels of interpretation and thus reach different audiences. As a result, it is deeply invested in the development of artistic practices in atypical spaces to foster social inclusion and access to culture for everybody.
Compagnie Zania’s work includes Capuche (2019), Jamais en retraite (2019), and Racines de X (work in progress, planned for 2022).
The Show
Jamais en retraite Création 2019
The team
Gioia Zanaboni
Slack rope, acrobatic bike
Attracted by the living arts, Gioia leaves Tuscany after a literary baccalaureate to join the city of Rome. In 2011, she begins to take professional courses in physical theater at the Vascello Theater, with the company Dynamis. At the same time, Gioia takes amateur circus classes with MateriaViva, a company that will then propose her to work together. This experience having pushed the young artist to become more professional, she embarks in 2013 on a professional circus training with the European project Sipario of the Scuola Romana di Circo. In 2014, she continued her apprenticeship at the circus/theater school CAU in Granada and finished a year later at the school Piste d’azur in Cannes. Today, she is based in Marseille where she co-founded the company Zania. In parallel to the show Jamais en retraite, Gioia Zanaboni presents the solo “Capuche” and also collaborates with the company Archaos.
Anja Eberhart
Acrobatic bike
Anja Eberhart grew up in Switzerland, and as a child she was involved in theater and acrobatic cycling as a hobby. After graduating from high school, she entered the Scuola Teatro Dimitri. During this time she attended the University of Sport in Bern and the University of Education in Zurich. While volunteering with Zip Zap Circus in Cape Town, South Africa, Anja decided to fully invest herself in her circus practice and joined the Centre National des Arts du Cirque in France. Her training will end in 2018 with the show Atelier 29, directed by Mathurin Bolze. In parallel and following her training, Anja Eberhart works as a substitute in the shows Roue Libre of the company Les Nouveaux Nez as well as Maintenant ou Jamais of the company Cheptel AleĂŻkoum. At the same time, she met Gioia Zanaboni with whom she created the company Zania and its show Jamais en retraite (2019). Anja is also preparing the show V’ivre with the company Cheptel AleĂŻkoum, scheduled for 2020.