Aerial »
A small, suspended metal hoop that the aerialist moves through/over/under around. Always there are people who buck the trend (and always they are the most interesting), but most hoop performance is relatively staid – the restrictive space of the circle (which in diameter is about or a...
A metal vertical pole, usually covered in rubber and secured by three stabilising cables. There's a kind of classic, traditional style of Chinese pole that uses the equipment for gymnastic feats – whether holding difficult static positions or kicking off the pole to perform somersaults –...
A length of rope rigged at both ends, some distance apart, to provide a hanging loop or swing. More popular than swinging trapeze in some quarters, regular cloudswing nonetheless has a similar vocabulary and tends towards spectacular trick-based performance which can, like all circus...
The art of climbing ropes. Generally held in polite and intelligent company to be the finest and bravest of the aerial disciplines, corde lisse appeals often to purists: against the relative complexity of trapeze or the accidental effects and built-in prettiness of tissu, its...
A metal rectangular frame which a base can hang from by the knees, supporting a flyer. Cradle is a discipline which combines elements of doubles trapeze and swinging trapeze, but has its own special flavour. With the base hanging down and holding the flyer it's possible to execute below...
Static trapeze performed with two aerialists. Of all the doubles aerial disciplines (and all the static equipment is capable of supporting doubles work, to greater and lesser extents) doubles trapeze is the most common and has the most advanced vocabulary. Duos who animate their acts with...
Discipline where a flyer leaps from one swinging trapeze to another, catching either the bar or the wrists of another aerialist. Famously invented by one of circus' ancient superstars, Jules Leotard, flying trapeze has been around for 150 years and is a nearly pure skill – one where the...
Aerial where the artist is wired into a harness, allowing them to run along walls and perform, slow, exaggerated acrobatics using the side of a building as their ground. Cumbersome to get in and out of and requiring a fairly substantial investment in equipment, harness aerial tends to be...
Two lengths of fabric that can be climbed and split for more complex tricks. As a discipline silks is fussier and poncier than its cousin corde lisse, but is widely used in giant/glossy spectacles for the dramatic effect of the flowing (high...
Two fabric straps, cotton or nylon, that are wrapped around the wrists for aerial work. For the most part straps is a gymnastic discipline where the artist demonstrates his/her (usually his) unbridled physical power within the confines of a strictly limited aerial vocabulary. There's...
Discipline where the aerialist executes somersaults, pirouettes and other tricks at either end of the swing. Generally allowing for more style and expressive movement than flying trapeze, swinging is also much more common – in the UK it's...
Acrobatics »
A style of street dance combing style, musicality, aggression, power and eccentricity. Not a core circus skill as such, breakdance has nonetheless been influential on circus performance, and particularly on the disciplines of floor...
A large, metal, grounded hoop that the performer rolls and spins inside. Debatably invented – and at the very least popularised – by Cirque Éloize co-founder Daniel Cyr, the Cyr Wheel is a specialist acrobatic discipline taught by Daniel himself and a few others dotted around Europe. (...
Somersaults and tumbling at ground-level. Generally speaking, circus' particular blend of acrobatics is a little bit rougher than gymnastics, with more space for deviation and invention. For artists who've gone through the school system in France acrobatics is at the core of the training...
A wheel made from two steel hoops joined by struts – looking like a ladder bent round into a circle – which rolls the ground with an acrobat inside or beside or above. Unpoetically described as a 'giant hamster wheel', the diameter of the German wheel is generally a little longer than the...
Traversal in flight. The art of moving across (usually urban) landscapes, parkour is similar to some martial arts systems in that it comes packaged in an insistence on a particular way of living and seeing: you're a traceur 100% of the time. Acquisition of skills is more about functional...
A discipline where groups of acrobats join hands to throw a flyer many metres through the air. Pitching is one of China's most ancient acrobatic skills. Handed down from generation to generation over a period of 2000 years, it originated from the tradition of whole towns and villages that...
A sturdy wood board lifted as a seesaw, with one or more acrobats jumping on one end to launch a flyer from the other. Popular with large-scale shows because the acrobats can be propelled high into the air for maximum visibility, teeterboard is a dangerous acrobatic display which is at...
Augmented jumping. A gymnastic discipline that has crossed over into circus, trampoline tends to be in big-budget spectacle shows (where the trampoline will perhaps be disguised as a bed or a piece of animal hide or recessed and hidden in the flooring), but does have companies who disturb...
Balancing »
Pairs acrobatic discipline where the flyer balances and does somersaults on the base's hands. Like all doubles disciplines, hand to hand invites romantic narratives, from the synthetic trad variety that always seems to get a Clown at Monte...
Standing on hands. Handbalancing covers handstand performance – on the floor, on canes, on towers of chairs, on revolving platforms, whatever. As with many disciplines, Chinese circus leads the field when it comes to blistering difficulty – the pioneers of handbalancing, in a purely...
An unstable, slack rope run between two points that the artist balances on and walks. Another one of those circus disciplines that has a mutant cousin in the extreme sports world (click here for Xtreme slacklining!!!), in circus the...
A high-tension wire that the circus artist walks and balances on. Replacing tightrope as a more reliable material that can bear more tension, tightwire is an unevenly practiced discipline – rare in the UK and many other countries, but much more common over in France where, on the one hand...
Juggling and Manipulation »
The mind of the juggler gone walkabout. It's a broad one, but assorted manipulation is a catch-all for those artists, often jugglers, who take the spirit of circus – which is mechanically subversive, and upside-down and inside-out and extroverted – and invests that spirit within everyday...
Keeping balls up. In the far-future, super-evolved world that is French circus there's been a movement toward fragmentation of different skills, with each group of practitioners focusing in on their subgenre to try and discover and work with the essence of its technique, and of all the...
Keeping clubs up. In the far-future, super-evolved world that is French circus there's been a movement toward fragmentation of different skills, with each group of practitioners focusing in on their subgenre to try and discover and work with the essence of its technique, and of all the...
A spool that is spun, thrown and caught on a string attached to two sticks. Only slightly less nerdy than kendama, diabolo is a complex and involved discipline that perhaps has lagged a little behind the artistic development of the...
Keeping rings up. In the far-future, super-evolved world that is French circus there's been a movement toward fragmentation of different skills, with each group of practitioners focusing in on their subgenre to try and discover and work with the essence of its technique, and of all the...
Miscellaneous »
Monstrous or absurd, sweet or savage, shy or bullying. The circus clown can adopt any persona, but is distinguished from the physical theatre or the Lecoq clown by a lineage that stretches back to the role of court jester: a figure whose position outside of society allows them to...
The cultivation and exercise of extreme ranges of movement. Contortion is as old as the hills, requiring no equipment and, variously, no training, supplementary training, or years and years of dedicated training depending on your genetics and start-point. The practice has a forked history...
Exhibition riding on trained horses. In the grand history of equestrian riding in traditional, tented circus there have been two main strands: dressage, where the horses are trained to perform stylised movements (turning circles, stopping, lying down, etcetera on command), and voltige,...
Functional gyration. A colossal craze in the 1950s when the manufacturers sold and shipped millions of units, the popularity of hula-hoops has since receded – yet lives on in the public sphere in the form of specialised fitness classes. In circus, hoop has drifted mostly into cabaret and...
Illusion, prestidigitation, mentalism, the unexplained. Trad magicians have always had their place in trad circuses – vanishing tigers inside their cages and elephants behind curtains lifted from stepladders – but contemporary circus has its own developing relationship with magic, and...
Acrobatics and dance performed with the added difficulty of negotiating one or more skipping ropes. Ah, skipping, King of circus skills. As so often, Chinese circus artists lead the world in intricate and astounding difficulty, and you can see such wonders as a a twelve year-old...
The trick cyclist climbs, balances on, rides backwards or side-saddle a moving, circling bicycle. Trick cycle is a relatively rare discipline, though the circus variant isn't so far from BMX tricking – just a little more focused on travelling tricks (balances and movements executed...
