Zirkus Giovanni – Kinder- und Jugendzirkus Bamberg

Zirkus Giovanni is an educational circus for children and teenagers based in Bamberg, Bavaria. Run by Don Bosco Jugendwerk Bamberg and supported by the Stiftung Zirkus Giovanni, the project uses circus arts as a tool for learning, artistic expression, personal development, and social inclusion.

The school has a real large permanent big top in Bamberg, offering participants a particularly immersive environment to discover and practice circus arts.

Regular classes and age groups

Regular classes primarily cater to children and teenagers from 8 years old up to the beginning of adulthood.

Several groups are organised according to age, with training sessions for children, pre-teens and teenagers and young adults.

Younger children can also discover the circus from the age of 6 through courses organized during school holidays.

A multidisciplinary pedagogy

The teaching is intentionally multidisciplinary.

Participants do not enroll in a course dedicated exclusively to one apparatus. They join a circus group and discover different disciplines before gradually building their own path.

The major families of disciplines

• Acrobatics : one of the major disciplines practiced within Zirkus Giovanni.
• Juggling : learning to manipulate balls, scarves, rings and clubs, but also discovering the diabolo, the devil stick, peas and passing in groups.
• Balances : balance ball, rola-bola, tightrope, unicycle, penny-farthing and stilts allow you to explore different forms of balance and movement.
• Aerial arts : they are part of the school's educational universe and allow young people to gradually discover working at height.

But Zirkus Giovanni does not intentionally limit the circus to purely technical performances.

Theatre, clowning and performance

Theatre and clowning are an integral part of learning.

Young people learn to take their place on stage, to create a character, to communicate with the audience and to develop their stage presence.

The project also incorporates work around fire and performance when age, level and educational context allow.

The creation of an issue

Creating a number is an essential step in the process.

Participants gradually learn to imagine choreographies, organize a presentation, choose costumes and think about the staging.

They are thus associated with the entire process of transforming a technical skill into a true circus act.

At least one major performance is organized each year.

Children and teenagers can then present their work in the actual Zirkus Giovanni big top, with a stage environment including light and sound.

Social pedagogy and inclusion

This artistic dimension is closely linked to the social pedagogy developed by the structure.

Zirkus Giovanni rejects a logic based on competition or the systematic pursuit of performance.

Each participant should be able to find their place in the group, progress at their own pace and discover skills they sometimes didn't think they possessed.

The pleasure of practicing together is a fundamental element of the project.

Children also learn to organize, plan, create and cooperate.

The circus thus becomes a tool for developing autonomy , creativity , perseverance , self-confidence and the ability to work with others .

An actor in the Social Circus

The inclusion is one of the major characteristics of Zirkus Giovanni.

The courses bring together children and teenagers from Bamberg and its district with young people accompanied by Don Bosco Jugendwerk and Lebenshilfe Bamberg.

For about twenty-five years, the organization has been developing methods to make circus arts accessible to vulnerable young people as well as to participants from educational, therapeutic or medico-social settings.

This experience made Zirkus Giovanni a recognized actor in the Social Circus in Germany.

Program with schools

The institution also develops an important program with schools.

Since 2006, more than 500 classes and approximately 12,000 students have participated in its school project weeks.

For five days, the big top becomes a veritable classroom dedicated to the circus.

Students discover different techniques such as acrobatics, diabolo, tightrope walking, clowning, and working with a board of nails.

The week culminates in the collective preparation of a real circus gala.

These projects are open to classes from the second to the thirteenth school year, to different types of establishments as well as to children with disabilities or integrated into inclusive schemes.

The project “ Zirkus macht stark! ” was also awarded by the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth for its cooperation between culture and school.

Holiday camps and training for adults

Holiday training camps complement the weekly training sessions.

In particular, they allow children from the age of 6 to discover the circus during the Pentecost, summer and winter holidays.

Zirkus Giovanni is also developing a significant training program for adults.

Teachers, educators, social workers, sports coaches, circus pedagogues and other professionals can take courses dedicated in particular to aerial acrobatics, clowning, circus pedagogy, Social Circus, juggling, balancing, fire techniques or the presentation of shows.

The organization has been involved for many years in the development of circus pedagogy methods and concepts in Germany.

Zirkus Giovanni notably participated in the creation of BAG Zirkuspädagogik and LV Zirkuspädagogik Bayern.

The organization is also involved in training Social Circus professionals and offers training in Germany developed by Cirque du Soleil around this practice.

A complete identity and a person-centered philosophy

Zirkus Giovanni therefore has a particularly complete identity: circus school for children and teenagers, social and inclusive circus project, partner of educational establishments, performance venue and training organization in circus pedagogy.

His approach places circus arts at the service of the individual and the collective. Success is not measured solely by the difficulty of a move, but also by a young person's ability to gain confidence, create, cooperate, present their work, and find their place within a group.

This philosophy, its permanent location under a big top and the scope of its educational work make Zirkus Giovanni a particularly interesting structure in the landscape of German circus schools.