Pascale Eberschweiler

After completing my Matura at Kantonsschule Stadelhofen in Zurich – where, although my marks weren’t particularly good, I took part in every theatre and musical production and preferred singing, dancing and rehearsing to studying maths and French – I spent two years trying to work out what I am going to do now with my life.

Set designer? Carpenter? Vet? Actress? Boat builder? Forester – or perhaps a paramedic after all?

I spent a year on the preparatory arts course at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHDK), earned my first bit of money and went travelling. The desire to study restoration in Bern came about very spontaneously. But at that point in time, it felt exactly right. The work is very varied. It requires concentration, a keen sense of detail, careful observation and plenty of improvisation. Besides, I’ve always felt at home amongst scaffolding, within historic walls and with various tools in my hands.

But after completing my bachelor’s degree, I wanted to be freer again. I wanted to discover even more, travel once more and finally spend a summer on the alp. Working and living as an alpine herder quickly became my greatest passion, and I’ve now been working as a goat herder since 2023 – I wouldn’t swap this job for anything in the world.

Well, with almost nothing. In the winter of 2024, I came to Germany to join Cirque Intense through a Cyr wheel workshop. I trained there for three months as part of the orientation and preparatory year. In early summer 2025, I returned once more for three months to take part in the follow-up production ‘Due Punti, der Raum dazwischen’ under the direction of Ursula Hildebrand and Robert Eisele.

My time there transformed the sense of wonder I’d felt as a child watching circus and theatre performances into a desire to be part of that magical world myself and, ultimately, to become an actress. However, as I’ve always had many interests and love doing and combining several things at once, a traditional acting training programme was out of the question. I want to continue training on the Cyr wheel and in acrobatics, whilst also singing, acting, improvising, dancing, making music and moving – and I’d prefer to do all this with nature and the mountains right on my doorstep.

The three-year course at the ATD here in Verscio combines pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted and offers me the chance not just to become an actress, but a versatile artist, equipped with a wide range of tools to bring together everything that interests me.