Traveling Circus

The traveling circus is in town, and the next stop is... all over the world!

With your class, explore the history of circus across various cultures and regions. Start by sourcing what your students know about circus and if they’ve ever seen one before. As they share, you may want to pull up imagery and videos of traditional circus elements (a big top or acrobatics) to give the class a reference point for what circus is.

Then, break your students up into six different groups—one for each continent. Explain that each breakout group will research the history of circus in that region and what it looks like today. This may be discovering an ancient clowning tradition or watching a video of a contemporary circus company. Some international circus companies to look into are Phare Circus from Cambodia, Circus Abyssinia from Ethiopia or Circolombia from Colombia.

Afterwards, prompt each group to learn one move or trick from their research and prepare to perform it in front of the class. To culminate, each group will share their learnings, complete with their very own circus trick. Then, compare and contrast the many forms that circus takes across the world and what you enjoyed about each of them.