ENCONTROS CIRCENSES NO BRASIL

espaço público, arte e lazer

Abstract

Public leisure spaces allow the enjoyment of various practices, among which are the artistic-circus. In Brazil, several circus meetings emerged from the 1990s with the aim of exchanging knowledge and promoting the use of public space as a form of leisure and artistic promotion. Many of these meetings take place until today with wide popular participation, leading us to study four of them, held in the state of São Paulo: Circo no Beco, Encontro Campineiro de Malabarismo, Encontro de Malabarismo e Circo da Praça Roosevelt e o Encontro de Artes Circenses da Zona Leste – Circo na Praça. The objective of this study was to know how each meeting was conceived, what are its characteristics and their relevance for leisure practices and artistic diffusion in the urban space. It is a qualitative research, which included direct observations at the meetings, as well as questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with participants and organizers. The results showed that these meetings are held through voluntary citizen action, generally independent of the public power, with wide popular participation, which can be considered important spaces for the enjoyment of leisure and the promotion of the circus in the local community.