Introduction to the Circus: Common Props Used

Having been a member of a circus club for the past few years, I have noticed that there are a lot of misconceptions as to what it is that a circus group does. It is a lot more similar to a theatre troupe than people usually think. But there are also a whole bunch of different props that people use that your average person does not think of. There is much more than acrobatics to the circus!

The most popular prop is probably poi. Poi are essentially two balls with strings attached to them that you swing around. (Picture right there.)

Seems simple, but there are so many things that you can do with them! You can grab a fellow poi friend and do some partner poi, or grab two or more poi in one hand to create different patterns. The possibilities are endless with this prop, but it is definitely one of the harder and more nit-picky ones.

Here's a cool video as an example: here.

Next up is staff. Fairly self-explanatory, you swing around a giant stick. But you can also get more into contact staff, which is when you do not use your hands at all, makes it much harder.

Contact staff video: here.

Hoop is also very popular. Most people have probably heard of this, and played around with one as a kid. But circus hoopers are really next level, they do some amazing things.

Yup it's a hoop video.

And of course juggling! Everyone knows juggling, here’s just a fun video.

Jugglinggggg

All of these props can also be a fire prop! Poi and staff become fire toys in a pretty obvious way, with hoop you have to attach individual wicks around the end. Most people use 3 or 4. And with juggling you only ever see clubs with wicks on the end being tossed around.

There are many more props than this out there! There’s leviwand, fans, diabolo, you name it. I’ll pick up later with some more obscure ones.