The Batoude
16 rue Emile Zola,
quartier Saint-Jean à Beauvais.
60000 Beauvais
The Batoude
La Batoude is a Circus and Street Arts Centre located in Beauvais, in the Saint-Jean district. For over twenty years, the association has been developing a particularly comprehensive project that combines amateur teaching, artistic education, adapted circus, performance presentations, support for contemporary creation, artist residencies and local cultural development.
Complementary Identities
The structure possesses several complementary identities:
- Circus school accredited by the French Federation of Circus Schools
- a venue dedicated to contemporary circus and street arts
- resource center
- Artistic Production Workshop supporting artists and companies in their creative processes
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School and equipment
The circus school is located in the Salle Jacques Brel, in the Saint-Jean district of Beauvais. This facility is specially equipped for circus arts. La Batoude also has two trucks equipped with equipment, allowing its teaching team to develop traveling workshops and reach out to audiences throughout the Oise region.
Amateur practice
Amateur circus activities are open to a very wide audience. They begin as early as age 2 with Baby Circus, a parent-child program. Children can then practice on their own from age 4, with groups gradually organized according to age. The program continues for teenagers up to age 17 and also includes a course for adults aged 18 and over.
Pedagogy
The teaching approach is intentionally multidisciplinary . Students are invited to discover several major families of circus arts in order to experience different relationships to the body, objects, space and others.
Aerial disciplines
- fixed trapeze
- aerial fabric
- aerial ring or hoop
- rope
- Chinese pole
Acrobatics
- ground acrobatics
- acrobatic lifts
- trampoline
- contortion
Balances on objects
- unicycle
- stilts
- rolla-bolla
- balance wire
- balance balls
Juggling
- balls
- clubs
- scarves
- cigar boxes
- devil sticks
- diabolo
Cross-disciplinary collaboration and residencies
Connections are regularly made with other artistic languages such as dance, acting, and music. This cross-disciplinary approach is reinforced by the presence of programmed artists and artists-in-residence, who can work with students and offer other artistic perspectives.
Teaching staff
The permanent teaching staff is composed of teachers and instructors specializing in circus arts, many of whom hold the BPJEPS Circus Activities and BIAC qualifications. Professional artists regularly join this team for masterclasses, workshops, or specific projects.
2026-2027 Season
For the 2026-2027 season, the school offers a complete progression from Baby Circus (2-3 years old) to adult classes. The groups are named after figures from the world of circus.
- Cadrole
- Micheto
- Charivari
- August
- Braggarts
- Circonaut
- Fakir
- Balagan
- Maringotte
- Barani
- Merlifiche
Weekly workshops and supervision
The weekly workshops allow students to discover, learn, and progress according to their abilities and interests. The school applies federal regulations regarding supervision: groups of 4-5 year olds are limited to a maximum of six students per instructor, and groups of practitioners aged 6 and over to eight students per instructor.
Prices
The pricing policy aims to promote access for the greatest number of people. Fees are adjusted according to family income, and registration includes the course, membership in La Batoude, and the license from the French Federation of Circus Schools.
Internships and masterclasses
The school also organizes workshops and masterclasses that allow students to delve deeper into specific techniques or meet professional artists. These events are often linked to La Batoude's artistic programming, thus creating a genuine bridge between the performance seen by the public and the practical experience gained by the students.
Tandem Circus
The 2026-2027 season includes several "Circus in Tandem" events. Organized at the beginning of school holidays, these events allow families or groups of friends to share a session introducing the main circus disciplines. This offering complements the Baby Circus program and reinforces the intergenerational dimension of the project.
Adapted circus
One of La Batoude's major characteristics is its long-standing commitment to adapted circus . For many years, the team has been developing projects with institutions that welcome young people with behavioral difficulties, people with disabilities and, more broadly, audiences facing different forms of social vulnerability.
Each week, children and adults from about fifteen institutions participate in workshops to raise awareness and practice circus arts. The association works in particular with:
- IME
- SESSAD
- DITEP
- MAS
- ADAPEI structures
- various medical-educational or medical-social establishments in the Oise region
The circus is considered a relevant educational tool: diversity of disciplines, possibilities for adaptation, imagination, relationship to the body, confidence and encounter with others make it possible to build situations adapted to very different audiences.
Artistic visibility of adapted circus
These projects benefit from significant artistic visibility. Each year, participants are invited to present their work at the school's major end-of-season event, "Attention... Circus Works!". For the 2027 edition, specific performances dedicated to adapted circus arts are scheduled for June 10th and 11th .
Arts and cultural education
Arts and cultural education is another major focus of the project. La Batoude works with numerous schools and notably has a Circus Arts Special Timetable Class – CHAAC – at the Charles Fauqueux middle school in Beauvais.
This class allows circus arts to be integrated into a structured academic program. Students also participate in La Batoude's end-of-year performances, alongside amateur practice groups and participants in adapted projects.
- Charles Fauqueux College
- Pellerin College
- Truffaut High School
Roaming
Mobile services constitute another essential dimension of its work. Thanks to two equipped vehicles, La Batoude can operate outside its premises: in the neighborhoods of Beauvais, in various towns in the Oise region, and with organizations unable to travel to the Salle Jacques Brel.
Performance, residencies and creation
La Batoude is also a true performance venue. Its programming combines contemporary circus and street arts, aiming to make demanding artistic works accessible. The presence of a school within this performance space fosters ongoing connections between students, audiences, and professional artists.
The organization also supports contemporary creation. Companies are hosted in residence and can benefit from workspaces, support, and production or co-production partnerships.
This activity relies in particular on L'Annexe , a creative space located in Frocourt, a few kilometers from Beauvais. This second site strengthens La Batoude's ability to support artists in their research and creative processes.
Link between school and professional creation
Students directly benefit from the close ties with the professional world: visiting or programmed artists can lead masterclasses, offer workshops, or create connections with other artistic disciplines. Circus arts education is therefore never completely separate from contemporary creation.
"Caution... Circus work!"
At the end of each season, "Attention... Circus Work in Progress!" represents the culmination of the year's work. For several days, the Salle Jacques Brel hosts the creations of the school's students, the CHAAC (Circus Arts and Cultural Activities Center), and partners of the adapted circus community.
The 2027 edition will take place from June 10th to 13th . The first two days will bring together the CHAAC (Circus Arts and Cultural Activities) program from Charles Fauqueux middle school and partners of the adapted circus. The school's students will then present their acts during five performances spread between Friday evening and Sunday.
Networks and recognition
La Batoude is strongly integrated into professional networks. Its school has been accredited by the French Federation of Circus Schools since 2003 and belongs to the FREC Grand Nord. It currently holds FFEC accreditation no. 60248 .
It is also involved in the networks for the dissemination and creation of contemporary circus and street arts. This link between educational and professional networks is a key characteristic of the organization.
La Batoude also benefits from recognition in the educational field: it is presented as the only circus school in the Oise region benefiting from both the approval of the French Federation of Circus Schools and an approval from the National Education system.
A true ecosystem
In Beauvais, La Batoude is much more than a leisure school. It forms a true ecosystem around circus and street arts: amateur courses, early childhood, teenagers, adults, adapted circus, CHAAC, schools, workshops, masterclasses, professional programming, residencies, creation, resource center and touring actions feed each other.
His project allows a child to discover the circus with his parent from the age of 2, a teenager to gradually develop his practice, an adult to start or continue the circus arts, a person with a disability to participate in an adapted artistic project and a professional artist to come and work on a new creation.
This diversity, combined with a long-term commitment to the Saint-Jean district and more broadly to the Oise region, makes La Batoude a particularly important player in the transmission, creation and dissemination of circus arts in the Hauts-de-France region.
