History of Circus Shows

Philip Astley was the creator of the modern circus in England during 1742-1814. He as a major before this and spent 7 years of his life serving the war. On becoming a performer his specialty was displaying his performance a a horse-breaker and trainer as well as performing equestrian tricks.

In the year 1768, Astley opened a riding school next to the Westminster bridge in London, England. During that time performing arts was still a developing talent and here he developed the term circus from the word circle. However, the circus ring was an act that Astley invented as this was done earlier on by other performing trick riders of the time.

In the year 1770, the circus was finally born as Astley hired acrobats, rope-dancers and juggles to be part of the acts. These are some of the popular circus acts today. From the Elizabethan theater he also added another character to the circus the clown and this was the first ever clown that was seen in the history of circus acts. As this was a success, Philip Astley then opened the first circus in Paris in the year 1782. After the success of all these shows then began the American travelling circus in the early nineteenth century.

At this point the circus started making its mark at many other places round the world. This included places like Russia, Australia, New-Zealand, India, China and many more. Getting into the twentieth century acts presented in circus shows were beginning to change and some being restricted from circus acts. For example, clowns were an essential act for all circus shows which included them singing, talking juggling and doing balancing acts. Now adding to all these they would also be expected to perform trampoline somersault acts which were seen as quite fearful at that time compared to the 21st century.

Looking at circus shows now in the 21st century not much has changed. Acts that were famous in the past are still part of shows and more acts have been invented along the way. However, health and safety play a major role in acts around the world more than they did in the past due to some acts being life risking yet being performed at the circus. This could be argued that even though some circus acts are sometimes life threatening why are they still allowed to performed at the circus today.

Ref:
Victoria & Albert Museum. The First Circus [viewed 17th March 2016] Available From: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-first-circus/