Every year in Italy, the Mirabilia festival provides a place—or several different types of them—where bold, inventive circus and theatre art can flourish. From Cuneo, Stacy Clark reviews some of the brightest shows in the 2022 festival roster with a careful eye for the unique staging that helps them shine.

First launched in 2008 by the cultural association IdeAgorà, the Mirabilia International Circus & Performing Arts Festival is a kaleidoscope of circus arts, theater, and performing, visual, and figurative art as well as music. The festival also supports training, networking, and exchange among artists and professionals. This year’s festival, Strange Beasts from Outer Space, was led by Artistic Director Fabrizio Gavosto and billed itself as “an edition of Mirabilia that speaks of us, of man, through his relationship with nature, with the wild.” Cuneo is a gorgeous city in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy where 14th and 15th-century architecture, sprawling piazzas, and gelato reign supreme. And while I may have benefited from the gelato, the festival did an extraordinary job of weaving live arts into the fabric of the city itself. And so, here are ...