Circus Show — International Exchange

The Circus School of the Ateneu Popular de 9 Barris has spent years training young people from the district in circus disciplines. The Mostra de Circ is the moment when everything they have learned comes out into the street — literally. An open space, in the middle of the square, with the neighbourhood as audience and the students as protagonists.

Circus is very present in Nou Barris. And it is no coincidence: it is a tool for social transformation that the district has understood and supported for decades. The Ateneu Popular de 9 Barris is its centre of gravity — but circus appears in the neighbourhood centres, the squares, youth festivals, international exchanges.

Photographing grassroots circus — not big-top circus, but neighbourhood circus — means documenting how an artistic discipline can build identity, confidence and community. Every acrobat is a young person who has learned to fall and to get back up.

In some years, the Mostra takes on an extra dimension: the international exchange. In 2025, Plaça Ángel Pestanya hosted the result of an exchange between the Ateneu Circus School and Circus Circuli Stuttgart. In 2023, another exchange brought groups from outside to share the stage with the Ateneu students. Two groups of young people who had spent weeks working together showed what they had learned — and what they had taught each other.

Acrobatics, balance, juggling. Young people performing not to prove themselves but to share.

Editions documented on the blog

Circus in Nou Barris — further documentation

Circus appears in the neighbourhood beyond the Mostra. At the Casal de Barri de la Prosperitat, in professional circus schools, at youth festivals: