Wuqiao in Hebei province is known as the birthplace of the circus and acrobatics in China. In honor of this title, the town has a festival named for it. Over nearly a quarter of a century that event has help push the art of acrobatics and circus performances to new heights. Let’s take a look at the 12th Wuqiao Acrobatics Festival.

    In Wuqiao this year, the show is being stolen by furry, four-footed, and sometimes ferocious performers. Accomplished animal tamers from home and abroad mount breathtaking spectacles, coaxing and compelling their savage co-stars into jumping through burning hoops and walking along balance beams.

    The Wuqiao Acrobatics Festival began earlier this month at the Hebei Art Center in Shijiazhuang. The festival which is held every two years and for nine-days seeks to set itself apart from other circus and acrobatic shows and always push beyond its own limitations.

    More than two hundred acrobats from around the world are performing dynamic and seemingly impossible moves in over thirty acts for the competition. The three best acts will be honored with the Golden Lion Awards at the closing ceremony.

    The Wuqiao festival also features a series of exhibitions, seminars, and lectures dedicated to the circus. And two outdoor marquees have been set up outside the theater to entertain local residents from dawn to dusk.

The 12th China Wuqiao International Circus Festival is to be held in Shijiazhuang and Changzhou, the capital of Hebei province from 31st October to 8th November, 2009. The Organizing Committee warmly invites circus and magic artists from all over the world to take part in the Festival.

China Wuqiao International Circus Festival—CWICF, which is named after the famous birthplace of acrobatics—Wuqiao, Hebei, is a magnificent and comprehensive international meeting of circus. CWICF was held in Shijiazhuang, the capital city of Hebei province, only in odd years once every two years, generally in the last week of Oct. or the first week of Nov.

CWICF has the longest history and the largest scale, since 1987 when the first CWICF was held, it has been arranged successfully eleven times. With the help of the Ministry of Culture, The Acrobatics Artists Association of China, CCTV etc. after ten years of efforts, CWICF has become a splendid racing place of acrobatics famous both in China and abroad. Every country who is good at acrobatics has sent acrobatics groups to participate in the festival, altogether, there has been more than 30 countries and over 180 programs appearing on the stage of CWICF, so the scale, the quality and the organizing methods of CWICF all reached an international standard.

CWICF promoted the exchange and flourish of acrobatics arts domestic and foreign, and it has great influence in the world and has been honored with “The Oriental Acrobatics Racing Place of the World”. During the period of CWICF, there are also Economic & Trade Meetings, their scale and international influence is gradually increasing as CWICF does and have achieved comprehensive effects in the construction of both spiritual civilization and material civilization.