LIN Chih-Wei

Founder

A Circus Taiwan Can Call Its Own

Founder and Artistic Director of FOCASA Circus In 2011, Lin Chih-Wei brought together a group of like-minded artists to establish Taiwan’s first contemporary circus company, FOCASA Circus. The company’s inaugural production, Pursue Our Dreams, premiered in 2012 and soon caught the attention of a French curator, leading to FOCASA’s first international performances. Since founding the company, Lin has taken on multiple roles as a performer, director, producer, and arts administrator, playing a key role in advancing contemporary circus in Taiwan. He also established a stable salaried employment system for the company, making FOCASA one of the few performing arts organisations in Taiwan with more than 40 full-time members. Under Lin’s leadership, FOCASA has achieved a number of milestones for Taiwanese circus. The company presents around 100 performances in Taiwan and abroad each year and has toured to 100 cities across 30 countries. In 2023, Lin founded the FOCASA Circus Arts Festival, establishing Taiwan’s first festival dedicated to circus arts. In 2024, Lin was selected for the Taiwan Fellowship Program of the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA), bringing the voice of Taiwanese circus to the international performing arts community. He was also named one of Taiwan’s 63rd Ten Outstanding Young Persons in the Culture and Arts category—an important recognition of circus not merely as entertainment, but as an artistic language increasingly understood, seen, and valued by Taiwanese society. In recent years, Lin has devoted himself to circus education and the development of emerging circus artists, with the aim of nurturing the next generation and building a sustainable future for contemporary circus in Taiwan.