ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the concept of social circus and how and why it is effective. It brings together the work of two thinkers on trauma, and the application of their ideas as a way of explaining how the physicality of learning circus skills assists young people affected by trauma. The ideas of French psychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik are referred to in the manual for Cirque du Monde instructors entitled The Phoenix: Building the Concept of Resilience into Cirque Du Monde Practices (Morelli and Lafortune 2003). However in this writing the author has brought Cyrulnik’s thinking about recovery from trauma together with the ideas of American psychologist Peter A. Levine to create the notion of the resilient body as a principle that can be seen to start to explain the successes of social circus. The chapter goes on to outline a number of different examples of social circus as a global movement.
