It was spring semester at Muhlenberg College.  My Aerial 2 class and I were discussing how television was a detrimental development to performing arts, particularly circus. “Why didn’t we learn about this in my communications class? We just studied the impact of television on American culture,” a student blurted out.

This is just one instance in a decade of teaching collegiate aerial arts courses in which students have expressed confusion tinged with resentment that they don’t learn about circus anywhere else. I took note, reflected on my own degrees in dance and theater and swapped stories with other artists and academics. It seems American education is strewn with holes that circus could fill. Why didn’t circus make it into the education system? Is this a purely an American phenomenon? What would change if it was more valued and visible in academia? I decided to do some digging. Over the past six months, I have had the pleasure of interviewing over a dozen circus scholars, authors, professors and directors of professional training programs in North America on the topic. Similar ideas and phrases were said over and over again in these interviews. Everyone’s experiences were surprisingly alike. This is the narrative of an entire community, not a singular trai...