Editing Entertainment (section)

==== Circus ====
{{Main|Circus}}
[[File:Cirque Soleil Stilt 1.jpg|thumb|Children entertained by a [[stilts|stilt]] walker performing in a circus act]]

A [[circus]], described as "one of the most brazen of entertainment forms",<ref name=Stoddart>{{cite book|last=Stoddart|first=Helen|title=Rings of Desire: Circus History and Representation|year=2000|publisher=Manchester University Press|location=Manchester, UK & New York|page=13|isbn=978-0-7190-5233-0}}</ref> is a special type of theatrical performance, involving a variety of physical skills such as [[acrobatics]] and [[juggling]] and sometimes performing animals. Usually thought of as a travelling show performed in a [[wikt:big top|big top]], circus was first performed in permanent venues. [[Philip Astley]] is regarded as the founder of the modern circus in the second half of the 18th century and [[Jules Léotard]] is the French performer credited with developing the art of the [[trapeze]], considered synonymous with circuses.<ref>{{cite book|last=Diamond|first=Michael|title=Victorian sensation, or, The spectacular, the shocking, and the scandalous in nineteenth-century Britain|year=2003|publisher=Anthem Press|location=London|isbn=978-1-84331-076-1}}</ref> Astley brought together performances that were generally familiar in traditional British fairs "at least since the beginning of the 17th century": "tumbling, rope-dancing, juggling, animal tricks and so on".<ref name=Stoddart /> It has been claimed that "there is no direct link between the Roman circus and the circus of modern times.&nbsp;... Between the demise of the Roman 'circus' and the foundation of Astley's Amphitheatre in London some 1300 years later, the nearest thing to a circus ring was the rough circle formed by the curious onlookers who gathered around the itinerant tumbler or juggler on a [[village green]]."{{sfnp|St Leon|2011}}