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With the help of $70,000 in funding from 2010 Legacies Now, Gymnastics B.C. has delivered three years of after-school programs teaching circus skills to children ages 8 to 16. They call the mix of juggling, balancing, and tumbling Applied Circus: Radically Extreme (ACRiX). It has taught about 2300 "at risk" youths across the province how to keep the balls in the air.
Jay Nunns, artistic director of Vancouver's CircusWest, is one of the trainers teaching about 60 instructors to deliver the skills through about a dozen community clubs around the province. He began teaching circus a dozen years ago and has taught about 300 kids himself through ACRiX.
He calls circus the "sticky" activity, since it frequently appeals the kids who are indifferent to sports, and often holds their attention for six or seven years. Nunns thinks that's because it's endlessly challenging -- once you can juggle three balls, you want to add four, five, or more.
"And I think it has stickiness because there's a place for everyone. You don't have to have a particular body shape. Or just one skill. We come together as a group to be unique," Nunns explains. "In a pyramid, you need big people on the bottom, small people on the top."
Nunns himself was hooked at about 15. While he was a natural athlete who ended up as the pitcher on his baseball team and the quarterback in football, he preferred collaboration to competition, and he enjoyed performing.
"I love making people laugh, and I always had a flair for the theatrical - circus combined it all for me."
At the end of the 10-week program, the kids put on a show featuring their new skills, which include some acrobatics, like handstands, and building the sort of pyramids often seen in cheerleading. They also learn to juggle with balls, rings, and showy circus apparatus like "flower sticks" - a trio of sticks linked together - and "Diablos," which look like two cups stuck together. (The equipment, which was bought with the 2010 Legacies Now funding, stays with the clubs.)
Nunns thinks circus is especially effective at teaching the subtle social skills that at-risk youth are often missing.
"You have to work together, so it teaches communication and community building. It also teaches trust - you really have to trust another person if you are on the third level of that pyramid."
Louise Demers a coordinator with Gymnastics B.C. says the course has proven to be unexpectedly popular, with about a third of the participants being boys. That's unusual in the female-dominated sport.
Demers attributes some of that popularity to the high profile of acts like Cirque du Soleil, which emphasize the dangerous side of circus. By contrast, ACRiX activities are safe - there's no dangling from trapezes or sashaying along tightropes -- and the skills are within the reach of any young person looking for a fun way to stay active.
Demers says that at the recreational level, gymnastics has much to offer the average child, which is why it is also a big part of the school curriculum.
"We say it teaches 'physical literacy,' that can be applied to any sport," she says. "It teaches coordination and balance. How to run. How to land a jump."
