In its 35 editions, the CIRCa festival in Auch, France, has become a proud showcase of the variety and vibrance of contemporary circus art. Pascal Jacob offers a breakdown of the creative scope and spaces of the shows on display at CIRCa 2022.

In Auch in 1975, the Abbé de Lavenère-Lussan founded the Pop Circus, a leisure school dedicated to the city’s young people, somewhat along the lines of the Centre Immaculée Conception in Montreal, where a circus school would be created six years later as a prelude to the future National Circus School. Between 1974 and 1990, circus schools multiplied throughout France. The growing idea to create a federation that would bring these schools together in a space of exchange and confrontation became reality on October 27, 1988, when the city of Auch hosted the first National Meeting of circus schools, chaired by Jean-François Celier. And so CIRCA was born. Initially conceived as a competition, CIRCA was transformed in 1995 under the impetus of National Center of Circus Arts of Châlons-en-Champagne Director General Bernard Turin and Ministry of Culture Inspector Yves Deschamps into a selection of schools invited to present...