In the last 20 years, circus activities have aroused a growing interest among physical education professionals, especially those who work in schools, representing a new possibility for the integration of body, aesthetic and artistic education. Due to the great interest aroused in educators and students, in recent decades there has been a great introduction of these activities into school curricula and even in other formal and non-formal educational spaces. They have been used in NGOs as leisure activities and have been increasingly introduced in schools and universities. At Unicamp's Faculty of Physical Education (FEF), there are extension projects involving circus arts and various segments of society. This dissemination occurs both internationally and nationally and, in parallel, academic production on the subject is growing significantly with a view to supporting this practice in didactic-pedagogical aspects.

It is in this context that the thesis developed by Teresa Ontañón Barragán, guided by professor Marco Antonio Coelho Bortoleto from FEF, is inserted, which addresses the circus at school as an element of integration of body, aesthetic and artistic education. The work seeks to show how the circus contributes in a unique way to greater body awareness, as well as to aesthetic education and the development of students' expressiveness. This type of activity represents an important difference in school physical education, where circus activities are normally introduced by teachers in the area. But there are cases in which its incorporation is in line with curricular programs. These initiatives open new perspectives for students who do not feel comfortable in physical education classes, particularly when they are not involved in team sports.

The researcher, with a degree in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, came to Brazil for the first time in 2008, still as a student, as part of an exchange program that Unicamp maintains with the Spanish university. During the one year period that she stayed here, she had the opportunity to meet the Circus Group at Unicamp, which is dedicated to the study and research of circus arts. After returning to her country to complete her degree, she returned to Unicamp in 2010 for her master's degree when she researched the relationships and pedagogical possibilities between circus and physical education. In 2013, she continued this research at the doctorate level, which she has just completed. During this time she had the opportunity to teach courses to teachers both in Brazil (São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Bahia, Santa Catarina, Mato Grosso) and abroad (Colombia, Argentina, Spain) and participate as a teacher in the Circus Activities course, for children, and extension courses, all offered by FEF.

Teresa's study is part of the research line of the group coordinated by professor Marco Bortoleto and professor Ermínia Silva, which branches into several segments such as circus history, circus safety, pedagogy of circus activities, circus at school, artist training circus, among others. Through periodic meetings, the group provides assistance to those interested in circus art, such as artists and teachers, and also promotes activities for children. 

In addition to having published several articles in international journals, the author has won awards and, as a result of one of her works, will launch the book Circus: educational horizons in the first half of this year.

Research

“With the research we intended to check what was happening with the circus at school”, says the author. To this end, the first step consisted of surveying the bibliography by consulting books, articles and academic works on the topic. The number of publications found was surprising, leading to the examination of more than 200 documents produced in Brazil and abroad. Among the publications involving circus and school and related to the pedagogy and educational function of the circus, she found that Brazil occupies the third position, surpassed only by France and Spain, countries with a greater circus tradition.

The research was completed with observations carried out in school practices, similar to what I had already done in my master's degree, when I focused on a Brazilian and a Spanish school. The doctoral work was based on a private school in Brazil, Colégio Oswald de Andrade, in São Paulo, and another public school in the city of Onnaing, France, Collège Saint-Exupéry.

On these occasions Teresa was concerned with checking how the classes were developed, the pedagogy and the content used, observations that she complemented by interviewing the teachers. She discovered that the circus project at Oswald de Andrade was incorporated into the curriculum, along with team sports and dance, and had been developed for 18 years by a teacher graduated from FEF. In her opinion, the project works very well in terms of content, promoting other types of relationships between students, as in circus activities there are no competitions inherent to sporting practices.

In this regard, the researcher states: “The situations that sport and the arts foster are different. Circus art develops expressiveness, body, artistic and aesthetic education that reaches a more sensitive, more human area, which, in my opinion, the world resents”.

In France, nature sports, collective sports, individual sports and expression activities, which focus on circus and dance, appear formally in the curriculum, among other contents. Teachers organize the physical education course based on this range of possibilities, which allows for greater structuring of circus activities. In Brazil they depend more on the teacher's will, their interest, their training. At the French school, the teacher in charge always emphasized that the introduction of circus made it possible to escape a little from the technicality involved in the sports that arouse the greatest interest among students.

Results

Teresa notes that the introduction of circus in education is growing, experiences in schools are increasing, more and more teachers are interested in using them and the bibliography on the topic is expanding. At FEF, there are constant invitations from networks of teachers who want to take courses that enable them to take the circus to their schools. Along these lines, she was even led to give several courses across the country.

Regarding the students, she notices that participation is very good and that this type of activity motivates them. The happy content attracts them, unlike what often happens in physical education, particularly with those who don't do well with team sports. Add to this the various performance possibilities such as juggling, balancing, acrobatics, magic and the participation of clowns, considered the actors of the circus. This spectrum extends to gender issues.

Furthermore, these activities facilitate the inclusion of people with special needs due to the flexibility of adaptations, which does not always happen in sports.

All these reasons attract teachers, who are very interested, although most do not feel safe in taking the circus to school as they do not have the training to do so. Those who do so are those who generally have some affinity with the circus and seek knowledge outside the university, especially because the interest of these institutions in the circus is very recent.

For Teresa, Brazil is a pioneer in these initiatives: “We have here in the FEF undergraduate course a subject related to circus at school called Circus in physical education, which I even took during my exchange. But there is no doubt that teacher training constitutes a serious limitation. So much so that we are highly sought after by teachers who want to take the circus to school, but don't know how to do it. This training is urgent because it is content that could prove to be dangerous if not well conducted by the teacher.”

Recommendations

Based on her studies and observations, the researcher outlines some elements that must be considered when proposing to take the circus to school. The first of these refers to the need to tell the story of the circus. She argues, as in other activities, that the content of body culture has a development, a context, as it does not appear out of nowhere. “The circus has a whole history that needs to be shown so that the content makes more sense to the learner, arousing their interest”, she emphasizes.

Another issue refers to the search for the pedagogical form that best adapts to the context. You cannot teach a six-year-old child and a fifteen-year-old child in the same way. One must consider the universe that permeates the students, their origins, and the difficulties they reveal. The teacher cannot help but think about what he wants to do and why.

It is also imperative that the teacher has training, whether acquired at university or outside it, in order to have contact with content and experiences that enable him to competently carry out the tasks he proposes.

There is also a need to encourage students to have a culture of safety, as there are activities in the circus that can pose danger. The teacher, in addition to being responsible for safety, has to instill in students the awareness of the need to observe safety principles that will serve them for the rest of their lives.

Another recommendation from the researcher is to work on the learning process with games, through playful situations. In other words, for the development of techniques, which can prove to be boring, there is a need to resort to play, so that the child or young person, going through different properly programmed games, reaches the intended technical development. In fact, fun is the essence of the circus.

Finally, Teresa makes it very clear that circus is an art and as such it must be worked on at school, promoting aesthetic, artistic and expression relationships. Due to lack of adequate training, there are teachers who only treat it technically and ignore art, which, for her, makes no sense.

The researcher considers it “super interesting” that circus professionals help the teacher’s work. There are teachers who are already looking for this partnership. In Campinas there are several schools doing this. It creates the possibility for the apprentice to practice and follow the artist's performance, in addition to receiving guidance from him.

Publication

Thesis: “Circus at school: for a bodily, aesthetic and artistic education”
Author: Teresa Ontañón Barragán
Advisor: Marco Antonio Coelho Bortoleto
Unity: Faculty of Physical Education (FEF)