More than 80 years have passed by since Father Flanangan, who worked with street children, founded in the 1920s in Nebraska (USA) the first circus for children. In the past 30 years the culture of circus for children and young people has developped and therefore many projects, schools and federations for tens of thousands of children have been founded.

In October 2005 more than 60 people from different countries, schools and circus organisations for children and young people joined together in an organisation called Network of International Circus Exchange (NICE).

In this section you will find names, addresses and links to courses and schools of circus arts for children and young people which are available in Italy. They also support our association and help us with the advertising and training. We are currently completing our registers, and we hope that many groups which are still not in them will soon join us.

During the national meeting for practitioners in the circus for children field, people from all over Italy representing various associations join together to create that characteristic and stimulating atmosphere so typical of our meetings. The meeting lasts five days and has a full program with workshops, speeches, workshops for children, comparisons of methods, professional updating and training.

Since 1999, Associazione Giocolieri e Dintorni has been promoting and organising meetings and training courses for trainers, entertainment organisers and jugglers who want to introduce the teaching of circus arts into schools, gyms and associations. Our project is supported by the Italian Ministry for Cultural Activities and by the Tor Vergata University (Rome).

Here you can find a brief introduction of our trainers who work (or used to work) with us for the development of our educational program and of a research into the teaching of circus arts.

Caro Circo (Dear Circus) and its open-air counterpart CaroCircoBus (DearCircusBus) are an initiative of Associazione Giocolieri e Dintorni. It started off on the bases of our own experience to promote and spread in Italian cities and towns circus arts seen as an educational tool for children and young people.

We also created a mailing list called “Progetti di circo” (Circus Projects) in order to provide all the practitioners with a useful tool which could facilitate comparison and communication between them. For those of you who use social networks, you can find us on FaceBook in a group called “Progetti di Circo” (in Italian).

Every year Associazioni Giocolieri e Dintorni publishes a brochure/leaflet wherein you can find references to schools, articles on the educational value of circus projects for children and young people, interviews to Italian practitioners. This leaflet is distributed to agencies, associations and institutions and was created also to help practitioners in advertising their projects.

Here you can find an interesting and joyful series of pictures which are directly brought by the stork! Are you born a juggler or do you become one? These babies, who have juggling and circus arts in their DNA, can tell us more about this old dilemma...