The Circus Booth
La Baraque à Cirque is a FFEC-accredited circus school located in Cholet, Maine-et-Loire. It offers regular classes for children from age 3, teenagers, and adults, as well as parent-child workshops and holiday camps. Its multidisciplinary curriculum explores acrobatics, juggling, object balancing, aerial disciplines, and physical expression. The camps provide opportunities to discover the trapeze, unicycle, tightrope, Chinese pole, and basic magic. The school also develops projects with schools, early childhood centers, and specialized educational institutions (IME), as well as cultural activities with local partners. La Baraque à Cirque also welcomes professional artists and teachers for open training in its space equipped with a gymnastic floor and aerial apparatus. A member of FREC Atlantique and accredited by the French Federation of Circus Schools (FFEC), it regularly participates in regional and national meetings of the federation's network.
49300 Cholet
Presentation
La Baraque à Cirque is a circus school located in Cholet, Maine-et-Loire. Situated at 13 rue du Planty, workshops 6 and 7 , it develops a project dedicated to the discovery, learning and practice of circus arts for children, teenagers and adults.
Offers and activities
The school offers year-round courses, holiday workshops, and numerous projects developed with individuals, schools, and sports, educational, social, and cultural partners in the Cholet area. It also welcomes professional artists and teachers for open training sessions.
Amateur practice
Amateur practice is at the heart of its activities. Regular classes are organized in small groups, generally around ten students, to allow for individualized support. Practice begins as early as age 3 and continues with different groups for children, teenagers, and adults. Parent-child sessions round out the offerings.
Multidisciplinary approach
Multidisciplinary approach
The school structures its teaching around five main categories:
- Acrobatics — used to develop body awareness, coordination, muscle tone, flexibility, strength and balance; it allows you to work on reception, anticipation and progressive risk-taking in a safe environment.
- Balances on objects — allow us to experiment with support, center of gravity and the relationship between balance and imbalance; addressed in particular through the tightrope and the unicycle during courses and workshops.
- Juggling — develops grasping, dexterity, coordination, dissociation of movements, rhythm and memorization of sequences; use of scarves, balls and pins in school projects.
- Aerial disciplines — reveal a different relationship to the body, to emptiness and to gravity; require strength, flexibility and orientation in space; the trapeze is offered during the courses and the school has an aerial gantry with a lanyard.
- Body expression — complements technical learning by working on movement, voice, expression of emotions and stage presence, to build an artistic proposition intended for the public.
This multidisciplinary approach is complemented, depending on the internships and projects, by disciplines such as trapeze, unicycle, tightrope, Chinese pole and small magic.
Internships and stays
Holiday camps organized during school breaks expand the number of disciplines available. They are offered during each holiday period and can take several forms: two or three-day sessions at the school or full-fledged camps including transport, meals and accommodation.
- Juggling (scarves, balls, skittles)
- Balancing acts on objects (tightrope, unicycle)
- Trapeze
- Unicycle
- Thread
- Chinese pole
- Little magic
European projects and meetings
The school develops European projects with foreign organizations. These exchanges and meetings combine artistic training, community living, mobility, and the discovery of other cultural environments. La Baraque à Cirque regularly participates in its regional network's events, allowing students from different schools to meet, practice together, and present their creations.
Creation
La Baraque à Cirque places great importance on creation. A specific "Artist" group allows members to work for free on physical preparation and the creation of acts, offering a space to move from technical learning to the construction of an artistic proposal.
This approach led the students to the National Stages of the French Federation of Circus Schools. In 2023, La Baraque à Cirque presented "Mise à nue" in Auch, an acrobatic creation selected for the national meetings organized as part of the CIRCa festival.
Network and accreditations
The school's regular presence in the federal network is consistent with its status: member of the FFEC and the FREC Atlantique. It benefits from FFEC accreditation no. 49375 .
External interventions
- Projects developed with schools and extracurricular structures (adaptation of content, duration and disciplines according to objectives).
- Classroom interventions: juggling, acrobatics, trapeze and balance within the framework of educational projects.
- Activities for early childhood (nurseries, childminders, childminding homes) and parent-child sessions.
- Welcoming groups from IME: interventions and welcoming integrated into medico-social projects (no confirmation of an autonomous weekly course "adapted circus").
- Offers for the professional world: team building, birthday parties and tailor-made festive events.
Artist accommodation and facilities
The City of Cholet provides the association with a dedicated circus arts hall, equipped with a gymnastic floor, an aerial rig with a safety line, and equipment for practicing various disciplines. Unsupervised open training sessions are offered to professional artists and instructors according to the schedule.
2026-2027 Season
For the 2026-2027 season, the school will continue its year-round classes and pre-registration is already open. The success of certain time slots confirms the school's presence in Cholet: as of September 15, 2026 , the Wednesday group for 9-11 year olds is already full .
Conclusion
La Baraque à Cirque is a particularly versatile amateur circus school: offering introductory programs for early childhood, regular support for children and teenagers, activities for adults, and a space for physical training and creative expression. Acrobatics, juggling, object balancing, aerial arts, and physical expression form the basis of its teaching, supplemented, depending on the workshops and projects, by trapeze, unicycle, tightrope walking, Chinese pole, and magic. Thanks to its FFEC accreditation, its involvement in the FREC Atlantique (Regional Federation of Circus Schools of the Atlantic), its school and social and medical projects, its workshops, its participation in European events, its hosting of professionals, and its involvement in national productions, La Baraque à Cirque now plays a significant role in the transmission of circus arts in Cholet and within the network of schools in Western France.
