Cirquenbul
64000 Pau
Cirquenbul — circus school in Pau
Founded in 1998, Cirquenbul is a circus school located at 4 rue Gutenberg in Pau, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Both a permanent school and a travelling structure, the association has been developing for almost thirty years a project focused on the discovery, initiation and learning of circus arts for all, with particular attention paid to accessibility , proximity , autonomy , development and exchange .
The story of Cirquenbul began in 1998 with Rodolphe Thierry and an idea that remains at the heart of the project today: to bring circus arts directly to the inhabitants of rural areas. Rather than waiting for students to come to a specialized school, the association decided to go to them.
As early as 1999, she equipped herself with a truck full of circus equipment and began to travel around the villages.
In 2001, Cirquenbul officially joined the French Federation of Circus Schools. The organization is now affiliated with FREC Aquitaine and the FFEC has granted it accreditation number 64204. It also participated in the Regional Meetings of Circus Schools of Aquitaine on May 30 and 31, 2026 in Ondres, alongside, among others, Acrofolies, AFCA, Alex Galaprini, Ballabulle and the Bordeaux Circus School.
Itinerancy remains a fundamental characteristic of the school, but it is no longer its sole mode of operation. In 2012, Cirquenbul established itself in permanent premises in Pau. The association can now simultaneously develop regular classes at its own school and continue its educational tours in the Béarn region.
Today, the school welcomes an extremely wide audience, from toddlers as young as one year old to adults, with programs adapted to both beginners and experienced practitioners. Children and teenagers naturally form an important part of the project, but Cirquenbul clearly advocates for a practice accessible to all ages .
Teaching: the five families
- Acrobatics: the body is used individually or in groups. Students practice rolls, jumps, rotations, and human pyramids. The school also explicitly mentions the trampoline and the Chinese pole among the techniques used.
- Object balancing: Cirquenbul has a particularly interesting range of equipment: balance ball , rolling cylinder , tightrope , unicycle and beam . These activities develop balance, coordination, concentration, body control and confidence.
- Juggling: a particularly rich family of equipment including balls, clubs , rings, spinning plates, diabolos , scarves, and devil sticks. For NetJuggler's indexing, the diabolo tag is confirmed by the official source, as are clubs and devil sticks .
- Aerial disciplines: working at height with several apparatus: aerial silks , trapeze , aerial hoop and rope are explicitly mentioned by Cirquenbul.
- Expression and acting: clowning, mime, emotion and staging are integrated into the practice in order to lead students to go beyond simple technical acquisition to act, tell a story and create.
This artistic dimension is fundamental to the school's pedagogy. The year is organized into three cycles, and the work gradually evolves towards creation. The instructors propose a general theme but guide the students so they can develop and showcase their own ideas. During the performance, the teaching team, on the other hand, seeks to step back to allow more space for student autonomy.
This approach allows us to consider the performance not only as a technical rendering but as the culmination of a collective process where practitioners gradually take on artistic responsibilities: imagining, choosing, building, rehearsing and then presenting.
The permanent school in Pau is now the main anchor point of Cirquenbul. It allows for regular courses to be offered from early childhood to adulthood, while preserving the itinerant model that constitutes the historical identity of the association.
Cirquenbul thus operates throughout the year in various towns in Béarn, in partnership with local associations and organizations. The current website states:
- Gan — Gan Music Dance
- Cescau — AFR The Ridges
- Monein — Monein Social Center
- Saint-Faust — Saint-Faust Sports Association
- Gomer — Perque Pas
- Baudreix — ESNEB
- Simacourbe — ESNEB
In Gan, for example, the local partner is currently describing small groups in which children discover acrobatics, balance, juggling, and acting, with a caring and playful approach. The work gradually leads to the creation of a show.
This organization constitutes a true tool for cultural democratization in rural areas: families do not necessarily have to make long journeys to Pau to access a specialized practice, since the teaching team and the equipment can come directly to their community.
During school holidays, Cirquenbul also organizes workshops. Sessions are offered particularly during the autumn, winter, and spring holidays and combine circus arts practice with arts and crafts activities.
The approach of the workshops is particularly focused on creation. The children do not just do circus arts: they participate in the construction of a complete universe by imagining a story and creating sets and accessories, before presenting the result of their work to their families at the end of the week.
For the 2026-2027 season, a dedicated official page is already online. According to the latest available information, Cirquenbul announced that detailed details about upcoming workshops would be published in September 2026. Therefore, you should consult this page for the new dates rather than those from the previous season.
The association also works with professional organizations, local authorities, institutions, and event organizers. In particular, it can set up a free, open-access circus arts discovery area at an outdoor location, complete with equipment and supervision.
This ability to move equipment and participants is directly inherited from the history of Cirquenbul: since the first truck in 1999, the association has considered touring not as a secondary activity but as an essential component of its project.
Cirquenbul also has a long-standing reputation in the field of popular education. The association was granted Youth and Popular Education accreditation no. 64.1005 in 2010. More recently, a prefectoral decree dated July 2, 2024, recognized that the association meets the common requirements for accreditation of associations for a period of five years.
The team currently presented by the school is led by Élodie Hallier , who is also listed as an official contact by the FFEC. She is accompanied by Justine Lanteaume , Marine Lefebvre and Erwan Martin as facilitators.
The association thus maintains a size that allows for a close relationship with students while having a significant territorial scope. Its project combines technical learning, motor development, individual and collective creativity, autonomy, and interaction with others.
Cirquenbul is therefore a particularly interesting school for the NetJuggler directory: it allows you to practice a very complete range of disciplines, from juggling to diabolo , from clubs to devil stick , from acrobatics to Chinese pole , from unicycle to tightrope and from trapeze to aerial silks , while developing an artistic approach through clowning , mime and the creation of shows.
Its hybrid model, both a fixed school in Pau and a mobile school in Béarn, allows it above all to pursue the mission that motivated its creation in 1998: to make circus arts accessible to the greatest number of people, including in rural communities far from major cultural facilities.
